Therefore, I put aside utterly, so far as I am concerned, the Uitlander and Dutch conspiracy arguments, of which one hears so much, as things which, though they may occupy the attention of leading article writers in London, yet are not convincing, and have no smack of reality to any one who knows something about the Uitlanders from personal observation, and something about the Boers and Boer life from personal observation. I put these aside and come back to the only argument that will really wash, that has no clap-trap in it. And that is South Africa under one Government, and under a strong and progressive Government. Human nature is pretty much the same all the world over, and if the Boers have been to blame in the past, no doubt the Britons have been just as much to blame. Anyway, it is impossible and would be useless to strike a balance between them now. The fact that stands out salient and that has to be dealt with in the present is that South Africa is divided against itself; that it never can and never will step up into its proper place until it is united, and that, therefore, to fight for a united South Africa is to fight on the right side and in a good cause.
And one thing I much like this plain reason for is, that it makes it easy for one to do full justice to one's adversaries. I admire their courage and patriotism very much. I acknowledge fully their dogged obstinacy in defence and their dangerous coolness in retreat, and I am sorry for them, too, and think it a sad thing that such brave men should be identified with so impossible a cause. You must be careful how you believe the reports sent home by war correspondents. I suppose people like to hear harm of their enemies, and a daily paper's best business is to give the public what the public wants rather than what is strictly true. The consequence is that accounts of Boer fighting and of the Boers themselves (traitors and cowards are the commonest words) are now appearing which are neither more nor less than a disgrace to the papers which publish them. I don't know since when it has become a British fashion to slander a brave adversary, but I must say it seems to me a singularly disgusting one, the more so when it is coupled with a gross and indiscriminating praise of our own valour and performances.
LETTER XVII
THE MARCH NORTH
NEAR JOHANNESBURG, May 31, 1900.
"May 1st, 1900.—The long-looked, long-waited for moment has come at last. We march from Bloemfontein on a glorious autumn morning, in fresh cool air and the sky cloudless. Forty miles off Thaba Nchu, that hill of ill omen, might be ten, so bold and clear it stands up above the lower ranges. The level plain between the island hills is streaked with gauzy mist.
"North of Bloemfontein we get into a pretty, uneven country with several level-topped kopjes set end to end like dominoes, and thickets of grey mimosas clustering in the hollows. The great column is moving forward on our left. Big ambulance waggons, with huge white covers nodding one behind the other, high above the press; the naval twelve-pounders, with ten-oxen teams and sailors swinging merrily alongside; infantry marching with the indescribable regular undulation of masses of drilled men, reminding one of the ripple of a centipede's legs; field artillery, horse artillery, transport waggons, more infantry, more guns—they stretch in a long, dark river right across the plain.
"Now a halt is called. The men drop on one knee where they stand, or hitch up their knapsacks to ease their tired shoulders. Then on again, guns jolting, men sweating, marching at ease, with helmets on wrong side first to shelter their eyes, and rifles with butt-ends over shoulders. They have a rest after a few hours, and fall out by the wayside, fling off the heavy accoutrements, light pipes, and fall a-yarning, stretched on the grass, or pull out scraps of old newspapers to read."
That was written the day we left Bloemfontein, just a month ago, and 250 miles away. We have come along well, have we not?