Oom Paul's People / A Narrative of the British-Boer Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and Its Institutions

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

Among the more prominent Englishmen who have recently studied the Boers from a car window, and have given the world the benefit of their opinions, is a man who has declared that the Boer blocked the way in South Africa, and must go. Among other declarations with which this usually well-informed writer has taken up the cudgel in behalf of his friend Mr. Rhodes, he has called the Boers "utterly detestable," "guilty of indecencies and family immorality," and even so "benighted and uncivilized" as to preclude the possibility of writing about them. All this he is reported to have said about a race that has been lauded beyond measure by the editors of every country in the world except those under the English flag. The real cause of it all is found in the Boers' disposition to carry their own burdens, and their disinclination to allow England to be their keeper. Their opinions of justice and right were formed years ago in Cape Colony, and so long as their fighting ability has not been proved in a negative manner, so long will the Boers be reviled by the covetous Englishmen of South Africa and their friends.

The Boer of to-day is a man who loves solitude above all things. He and his ancestors have enjoyed that chief product of South Africa for so many generations that it is his greatest delight to be alone. The nomadic spirit of the early settler courses in his veins, and will not be eradicated though cities be built up all around him and railroads hem him in on all sides.

He loves to be out on the veldt, where nothing but the tall grass obstructs his view of the horizon, and his happiness is complete when, gun in hand, he can stalk the buck or raise the covey on soil never upturned by the share of a plough. The real Boer is a real son of the soil. It is his natural environment, and he chafes when he is compelled to go where there are more than a dozen dwellings in the same square mile of area.

The pastoral life he and his ancestors have been leading has endowed him with a happy-go-lucky disposition. Some call him lazy and sluggish because he has plenty of time at his disposal and "counts ten" before acting. Others might call that disposition a realization of his necessities, and his chosen method of providing for them.

The watching of herds of cattle and flocks of sheep has since biblical times been considered an easier business than the digging of minerals or the manufacture of iron, and the Boer has realized that many years ago. He has also realized the utter uselessness of digging for minerals and the manufacture of iron when the products of either were valueless at a distance of a thousand miles from the nearest market. Taking these facts in consideration, the Boer has done what other less nomadic people have done. He has improved the opportunities which lay before him, and has allowed the others to pass untouched.

The Boers are not an agricultural people, because the nature of the country affords no encouragement for the following of that pursuit. The great heat of the summer removes rivers in a week and leaves rivulets hardly big enough to quench the thirst of the cattle. Irrigation is out of the question, as the great rivers are too far distant and the country too level to warrant the building of artificial waterways. Taking all things into consideration, there is nothing for a Boer to do but raise cattle and sheep, and he may regard himself particularly fortunate at the end of each year if drought and disease have not carried away one half of this wealth.

The Boer's habits and mode of life are similar to those of the American ranchman, and in reality there is not much difference between the two except that the latter is not so far removed from civilization. The Boer likes to be out of the sight of the smoke of his neighbour's house, and to live fifteen or twenty miles from another dwelling is a matter of satisfaction rather than regret to him. The patriarchal custom of the people provides against the lack of companionship which naturally would follow this custom.

When a Boer's children marry they settle within a short distance of the original family homestead; generally several hundred yards distant. In this way, in a few years, a small village is formed on the family estates, which may consist of from five hundred to ten thousand acres of uninclosed grazing ground. Every son when he marries is entitled to a share of the estate, which he is supposed to use for the support of himself and his family, and in that way the various estates grow smaller each generation. When an estate grows too small to support the owner, he "treks" to another part of the country, and receives from the state such an amount of territory as he may require.

Boer houses, as a rule, are situated a long distance away from the tracks of the transport wagons, in order that passing infected animals may not introduce disease into the flocks and herds of the farmer. Strangers are seldom seen as a result of this isolation, and news from the outer world does not reach the Boers unless they travel to the towns to make the annual purchases of necessaries.

Their chief recreation is the shooting of game, which abounds in almost all parts of the country. Besides being their recreation, it is also their duty, for it is much cheaper to kill a buck and use it to supply the family larder than to kill an ox or a sheep for the same purpose. It is seldom that a Boer misses his aim, be the target a deer or an Englishman, and he has ample time to become proficient in the use of the rifle. His gun is his constant companion on the veldt and at his home, and the long alliance has resulted in earning for him the distinction of being the best marksman and the best irregular soldier in the world. The Boer is not a sportsman in the American sense of the word. He is a hunter, pure and simple, and finds no delight in following the Englishman's example of spending many weeks in the Zambezi forests or the dangerous Kalahari Desert, and returning with a giraffe tail and a few horns and feathers as trophies of the chase. He hunts because he needs meat for his family and leather for sjam-bok whips with which to drive his cattle, and not because it gives him personal gratification to be able to demonstrate his supreme skill in the tracking of game.