A curious thing about that continent is: you
may dislike it or fall under its charm, but in any case it nearly always
calls you back. It certainly did in my case; and while recalling the
people we had met and the information we had acquired it was impossible
not to think a little of the Boers themselves, their characteristics and
their failings. At Johannesburg I had been specially struck by men, who
knew them from long experience, telling me how fully they appreciated
the good points of the burghers--for instance, their bravery, their love
of their country, and their simple, unquestioning, if unattractive
faith, which savoured of that of the old Puritans. Against these
attributes their pig-headedness, narrow-mindedness, laziness, and
slovenliness had to be admitted. All these defects militated against
their living in harmony with a large, increasing, and up-to-date
community like the Johannesburg Uitlanders. Still, one could not forget
that the Transvaal was their country, ceded to them by the English
nation. They left Cape Colony years ago, to escape our laws, which they
considered unjust. It is certain we should never have followed them into
the Transvaal but for the sudden discovery of the gold industry; it is
equally true they had not the power or the wish to develop this for
themselves, and yet without it they were a bankrupt nation.
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