Those days are passed; but the instinct remains, the knowledge has become hereditary, and, through the love of hunting which still continues in the breast of the Boer, it is to-day a practical and potent force. To the average Dutch farmer maps are therefore unnecessary, and the Drakensberg is as familiar in its every detail of mountain and kopje and rainless river as are the rooms of his own home on the rolling plains of the Transvaal or the Orange Free State. Hence it is that the general peculiarities of his complex character combine to make him a soldier and enemy whom it is no easy task to subdue—even for the legions of Britain and her allied Empire.
CHAPTER X.
The Annexation of the Transvaal.
Dangers Without, Difficulties Within
In the years immediately following 1872 the disorganization and public weakness of the Transvaal Boers became dangerous to themselves and inimical to the peace of all South Africa. The emigrant farmers had for two decades been living in a chronic state of war with the ever-increasing number of natives around them and, while successful in their raids upon individual Bantu kraals, were entirely unsuccessful in the subjection of the tribes as a whole. They would not submit to taxation, what little paper money they possessed had in 1870 depreciated to a quarter of its face value, and the few business transactions indulged in were carried out on lines of barter not dissimilar to the aboriginal customs around them. No public improvements were made and no administrative system existed further than a nominal Presidency which was helpless in the face of the surrounding disorganization. The accession of Mr. Burghers to the position, in 1872, did not remedy matters and the repulse of the Boers from the stronghold of Sekukuni on their north-eastern border, in 1876, precipitated a situation which resulted in the British annexation of the Republic.
Authoritative Questions
So much of the subsequent discussion regarding this policy turns upon the then existing internal situation of the Transvaal that a couple of authoritative quotations may be given here. Mr. James Bryce, who has since made himself unpopular in England by his opposition to the War of 1899, states in his Impressions of South Africa that: "The weakness and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the British subjects who had begun to settle in it but also to the neighbouring British territories and especially Natal." Dr. George M. Theal, a recognized authority upon South African affairs, despite a pronounced tendency to sympathize with the Dutch, refers in the Story of the Nations Series, to the troubles with Sekukuni and then proceeds; "But the country was quite unable to bear the strain. The ordinary charges of government and the interest on the public debt could not be met, much less an additional burden. And so the whole administrative machinery broke down. The Republic was really in a pitiable state, without money or an army, with rebellion triumphant and a general election approaching that was feared might be attended with civil war."
A Great Peril
National bankruptcy and the danger arising from 300,000 threatening natives surrounding, within the Transvaal, some 30,000 people of Dutch descent were also added to by the possibility of external attack from the Zulus. There can be no doubt of the reality of this peril although the events which followed led the Dutch to minimize its extent. Cetywayo, in 1876, had a large army of trained and physically powerful warriors numbering at least 30,000 men. He had immense reserves of savage population, in the event of war, both in the Transvaal and Natal, and all were bound together by a bond of hatred against the Boer—the only tie recognized by native tribes. He had his men in threatening positions upon the frontier from time to time and had announced that his Impis must have an opportunity of wetting their spears in the blood of an enemy. But at this point the Zulu chieftain touched British interests. If he attacked the Boers and was successful it meant a future onslaught with increased power upon Natal, and, in any case, might easily involve the hundreds of thousands of related tribes in the Colony. For the safety of the scattered British settlements it was therefore necessary to protect the now almost helpless Boer. Of course, the commandos of the latter would have put up a good fight against the invading hordes and the enmity of surrounding natives, but, without provisions, without ammunition, without fortifications, and without money (the Transvaal Treasury was so empty in 1876 that it could not pay for the transportation of some ammunition from Durban to Pretoria) the result must have been extremely disastrous.