“It maybe that the Kaffir is sometimes cruel,” says one who has seen and known him,—­“he certainly requires supervision.  But he was bred in cruelty and reared in oppression—­the child of injustice and hate.  As the springbok is to the lion, as the locust is to the hen, so is the Kaffir to the Boer; a subject of plunder and leaven of greed.  But the Kaffir is capable of courage and also of the most enduring affection.  He has been known to risk his life for the welfare of his master’s family.  He has worked without hope of reward.  He has laboured in the expectation of pain.  He has toiled in the snare of the fowler.  Yet shy a brickbat at him!—­for he is only a Kaffir!  “However much the Native may excel in certain qualities of the heart, still, until purged of the poison of racial contempt, that will be the expression of the practical conclusion of the white man regarding him; “Shy a brickbat at him.  He is only a nigger.”

A merely theoretical acknowledgment of the vital nature of this question, of the future of the Native races and of Missionary work will not suffice.  The Father of the great human family demands more than this.

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? 
To loose the bands of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that ye break every yoke?”

(ISAIAH lviii. 6.)

I have spoken, in this little book, as an Abolitionist,—­being a member of the “International Federation for the Abolition of the State regulation of vice.”  But I beg my readers to understand that I have here spoken for myself alone, and that my views must not be understood to be shared by members of the Federation to which I refer.  My Abolitionist friends on the Continent of Europe, with very few exceptions, hold an opinion absolutely opposed to mine on the general question here treated.  It is not far otherwise in England itself, where many of our Abolitionists, including some of my oldest and most valued fellow-workers, stand on a very different ground from mine in this matter.  I value friendship, and I love my old friends.  But I love truth more.  I have very earnestly sought to know the truth in the matter here treated.  I have not rejected evidence from any side, having read the most extreme as well as the more moderate writings on different sides, including those which have reached me from Holland, France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Transvaal, as well as those published in England.  Having conscientiously arrived at certain conclusions, based on facts, and on life-long convictions in regard to some grave matters of principle, I have thought it worth while to put those conclusions on record.  J.E.B.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 37:  The Transvaal from Within.  FitzPatrick.]

[Footnote 38:  This may also be true of the Boer combatants sacrificed for the sins of their rulers, but I prefer only to attest that of which I have full proof.]