The Last Boer War

by H. Rider Haggard

Meanwhile, there is, so far as South Africa is concerned, a step that might be taken to the great benefit of that country, and also of our Imperial aims, and that is the appointment of a High Commissioner who would have charge of all Imperial as distinguished from the various Colonial interests. This appointment has already been advocated with ability by Mr. Mackenzie in the last chapter of his book, "Austral Africa," and it is undoubtedly one that should receive the consideration of the Government. Such an officer would not supersede the Governors of the various colonies or the administrators of the native territories, although, so far as Imperial interests were concerned, they would be primarily responsible to him. At present there is no central authority except the Colonial Office, and Downing Street is a long way off and somewhat overworked. Each Governor must necessarily look at South African affairs from his own standpoint and through local glasses. What is wanted is a man of the first ability, whose name would command respect abroad and support at home; and several such men could be found, who would study South African politics as a whole as an engineer studies a map, and who would set himself to conciliate and reconcile all interests for the common welfare and the welfare of the mother-country. Such a man, or rather a succession of such men, might, if properly supported, succeed in bringing about a very different state of affairs from that which has been briefly reviewed and considered in these pages. They might, little by little, build up a South African Confederation, strong in itself and loyal to England, that shall in time become a great empire. For my part, notwithstanding the difficulties and dangers which we have brought upon ourselves, and upon the various South African territories and their inhabitants, I believe that such an empire is destined to arise, and that it will not take the form of a Dutch Republic.

APPENDIX.

I.
THE POTCHEFSTROOM ATROCITIES, &c.

There were more murders and acts of cruelty committed during the war at Potchefstroom, where the behaviour of the Boers was throughout both deceitful and savage, than at any other place.

When the fighting commenced a number of ladies and children, the wives and children of English residents, took refuge in the fort. Shortly after it had been invested they applied to be allowed to return to their homes in the town till the war was over. The request was refused by the Boer commander, who said that as they had gone there, they might stop and "perish" there. One poor lady, the wife of a gentleman well known in the Transvaal, was badly wounded by having the point of a stake, which had been cut in two by a bullet, driven into her side. She was at the time in a state of pregnancy, and died some days afterwards in great agony. Her little sister was shot through the throat, and several other women and children suffered from bullet wounds, and fever arising from their being obliged to live for months exposed to rain and heat, with insufficient food.

The moving spirit of all the Potchefstroom atrocities was a cruel wretch of the name of Buskes, a well-educated man, who, as an advocate of the High Court, had taken the oath of allegiance to the Queen.

One deponent swears that he saw this Buskes wearing Captain Fall's diamond ring, which he had taken from Sergeant Ritchie, to whom it was handed to be sent to England, and also that he had possessed himself of the carriages and other goods belonging to prisoners taken by the Boers.[21] Another deponent (whose name is omitted in the Blue Book for precautionary reasons) swears, "That on the next night the patrol again came to my house accompanied by one Buskes, who was secretary of the Boer Committee, and again asked where my wife and daughter were. I replied, in bed; and Buskes then said, 'I must see for myself.' I refused to allow him, and he forced me, with a loaded gun held to my breast, to open the curtains of the bed, when he pulled the bedclothes half off my wife, and altogether off my daughter. I then told him if I had a gun I would shoot him. He placed a loaded gun at my breast, when my wife sprang out of bed and got between us."

I remember hearing at the time that this Buskes (who is a good musician) took one of his victims, who was on the way to execution, into the chapel and played the "Dead March in Saul," or some such piece, over him on the organ.

After the capture of the Court House a good many Englishmen fell into the hands of the Boers. Most of these were sentenced to hard labour and deprivation of "civil rights." The sentence was enforced by making them work in the trenches under a heavy fire from the fort. One poor fellow, F. W. Finlay by name, got his head blown off by a shell from his own friends in the fort, and several loyal Kafirs suffered the same fate. After these events the remaining prisoners refused to return to the trenches till they had been "tamed" by being thrashed with the butt end of guns, and by threats of receiving twenty-five lashes each.

But their fate, bad as it was, was not so awful as that suffered by Dr. Woite and J. Van der Linden.