United States or Mayotte ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The one thing I dreaded was civil war and bloodshed, and had a single malcontent been shot, I should have considered it a greater misfortune than the death of a dozen Piet Retiefs, or Uys, dying like heroes in the field of battle for their country and brethren. So you may imagine how thankful I felt to the Giver of all good, who has guided and protected us through life.
I was there with Piet Uys, and it was a sight, I can tell you. And then they'd fire ah, they did fire anyhow, anywhere, but mostly at the clouds, there was no stopping them; and so, you see, I thought that you would like to turn your sword into a ploughshare, as the Bible says but no offence, I'm sure no offence."
His servant, a sullen Kafir, found him in his bed when supper-time came, called him, looked, made sure, and ran off to spread the news that David Uys was dead. He was lying, I have learned, as one would lie who wished to die formally, with a smile on his face and his arms duly crossed.
With the Transvaal Boer it was far otherwise. Amongst the leaders of the Voor-trekkers, as the original emigrants from Cape Colony are called, were leaders of whom colonists of any race might be proud, such as Pretorius, Potgieter, Uys, and Retief, and, no doubt, among their followers were many like them; but it was the most discontented and the most uncivilised and turbulent, as a rule, that crossed the Vaal originally; and there they lived isolated lives, far away from any white being but those of their own family, without books, without intercourse with the outer world, surrounded only by their wives and children and Kaffir servants, or rather slaves; and thus the Transvaal Boer, to whom alone we ought to apply the name, became more sullen, obstinate, bigoted, and ignorant than his cousins farther south.
Bearded, bowed, with hard blue eyes that questioned always, so we knew David Uys as children; an old, remotely quiet man, who was to be passed on the other side of the street and in silence.
Men who during the late war were our foes were at the time of the annexation clamouring for it, welcoming Sir Theophilus Shepstone as the deliverer and saviour of the country. I mention Swart Dirk Uys, an eminent Boer, who fought against the English in 1880-81, as one amongst the hundreds and thousands who went out to meet Sir Theophilus Shepstone with palm branches in their hands.
Why should I complain when I know that cautions from notable persons such as Sir Melmoth Osborn, and J. J. Uys, a member of one the old Dutch fighting families, met with a like fate. By the way it was while I was waiting on the banks of the river that I came across an old friend of mine, a Zulu named Magepa, with whom I had fought at the battle of the Tugela.
It was greatly disconcerting to be thus unceremoniously and discourteously greeted, and having explained my mission, I withdrew and took care to fight shy of this arrogant soldier in future. I may say that our little party at "Myrtle Grove" was a few weeks later augmented by the arrival of Vaal Piet Uys and Landdrost T. Kelly.
I have been at some pains to discover the story of David Uys; and though some or the greater part of it may throw no further back than to the vrouws of the dorp, it seems to me that they have done their part at least as well as David Uys did his, and this is the tale I gleaned.
It seems a hard thing to say of a people who have produced men like the first Bezuidenhout, who fought and died single-handed against the British troops; men like Piet Retief, as gallant a man as ever walked; men like Piet Uys, an example to all men for all time, and only one of many generations in one family of equally gallant Dutchmen; but it would truly seem that such examples do not occur with such frequency among the Boers as among nations with whom they have been compared.
Word Of The Day