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It is therefore not to be wondered at if the whole race is confounded and held in low estimation by those who do not know the real composition of the Cape community. Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to have children late.
He was the man who first suggested to the British authorities the scheme of placing the Boer women and children in Concentration Camps a system which resulted in so much misery and suffering and he maintained that this would be the most effective way of forcing the Boers to surrender, arguing that no burgher would continue to fight when once his family was in British hands.
Another train now appears, bringing further reinforcements. Quite a hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje.
Colonel Byng made his way along the donga to within about twelve or fourteen hundred yards, and from excellent cover opened fire on the Boers holding the summit of the hill. A long musketry duel ensued without any loss to our side, and with probably no more to the enemy.
On the 18th he took twenty-seven, on the 24th twelve, and on the 26th no fewer than ninety. So severe were these blows, and so difficult was it for the Boers to know how to get away from an antagonist who was ready to ride thirty miles in a night in order to fall upon their laager, that the enemy became much scattered and too demoralised for offensive operations.
It was not so much a parallelism of aims and hopes, for the struggle in England was political and not national as in South Africa, as of temperament, character, and method. There was hardly an individuity in the Boers of the War which might not have been found in the followers of Cromwell.
Strange that the old dog should die just now! Was it an omen? He turned at the gate to look back at that russet mound, then went slowly towards the house, very choky in the throat. June was at home; she had come down hotfoot on hearing the news of Jolly's enlistment. His patriotism had conquered her feeling for the Boers.
It was a much better building than the Boers generally indulge in, and the sitting-room, though innocent of flooring unless clay and cowdung mixed can be called a floor was more or less covered with mats made of springbuck skins.
That the Boers proved themselves brave during the war goes without saying. Those who prophesied a speedy termination of the war in favour of the British thought that lyddite-shells and dum-dum bullets, when applied to the Boer, would at once scatter them far and wide, and so intimidate them that they would kneel and sue for mercy and peace.
We have pictured to ourselves everyone actively employed, the vigilance at all the outposts, the skirmishing with the Boers who crept up too closely, the excitement of repelling their attack, and all that sort of thing. It is all very good to read about, but now we know what it really meant one sees that we were a pack of fools to have wished to be there."
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