The problem will apparently be, when we have burnt these people out or shot them, and in various ways annexed a good deal of the land they now live on, how are we to replace them?  What strikes one is that time and the country, acting on the naturally phlegmatic Dutch character, has produced a type exactly suited to this life and these surroundings.  And it does seem in many ways a pity to destroy this type unless you have something to take its place.  Except in one or two very limited areas, accessible to markets, and where there is a water supply, no English colonist would care to settle in this country.  The Canadians and Australians, many of whom volunteered, and came here with the view of having a look at the land and perhaps settling, are, I hear, unanimous in condemning it.  Indeed, it does not require any great knowledge of agriculture to see that a country like this, a lofty table-land, dry and barren, with no market handy, or chance of irrigation, is a wretched poor farming country.  Hence the pity it seems of wiping out the burghers.  They may not be a very lofty type of humanity, but they had the advantage in nature’s scheme of filling a niche which no one else, when they are turned out, will care to fill in their place.  The old dead-alive farm, the sunny stoep, the few flocks and herds and wandering horses sparsely scattered over the barren plain, the huge ox-waggon, most characteristic and intimate of their possessions, part tent and part conveyance, formed for the slow but sure navigation of these solitudes, and reminding one a great deal of the rough but seaworthy smacks and luggers of our coasts, that somehow seem in their rudeness and efficiency to stand for the very character of a whole life, all these things are no doubt infinitely dear to the Boer farmer, and make up for him the only life possible, but I don’t think it would be a possible life for any one else.  It seems inevitable that large numbers of farms, owing to death of owners, war indemnity claims, bankruptcy, and utter ruin of present holders, &c., will fall into the hands of our Government when the war is over, and these will be especially the poorer farms.  But yet probably as years pass they will tend to lapse once more into Dutch hands, for it is difficult to believe that men of our race will ever submit to such a life of absolute stagnation.  In dealing with the future of the country, it will always be a point that will have to be borne in mind, that the natural conditions of life outside the towns are such as favour the Dutch character very much more than they do the English.

LETTER XXIII

WRITTEN FROM HOSPITAL

HOSPITAL, KRONSTADT, September 6, 1900.