New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-02-21
AFRICAN FACT AND FICTION.
OLIVE SCHREINER'S NEW ALLEGORY
AND THE TALK OF A TRAVELLER.

AND THE TALK OF A TRAVELLER
TROOPER PETER HALKET or MAsHoNhAS-
LAND. BY Olive Schrencr. octave, PIP lS3.
Boston: Roberts Bros.
Gals. CoRIsCo AND CAMEROoNs. BY Mary
II. Kingsley. With illustrations. Octave PIP
xvi. 7i3. The Macmillan Company.
1t has taken long time for the Jameson
raid and the situation from which it sprang to
get themselves made into literature. The Poet
Laureate tried his hand upon the theme and
failed so ANONYMOUSLY, in fact, that he has
Withdrawn from circulation the rhymes In ques-
ton. In prose there has been nothing of impor
tancc printed either here or in England. moth
ing. that is to say. except the small volume by
Olive Schreiner. to which she gives the title Of
Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaand." Miss
Schreiner is open to the charge Of prejudce--if
Won happen TO disagree with her. She In against
the Chartered Company. and her book is a sting
ing rebuke To Rhodes and all his satellites. But
this is a point which must he granted at the
outset II her book is a humanitarian pamphlet.
il is also as we have indicated, imaginative
literature and quite aside from It's argumenta-
tive power 1t enthralls and impresses the
reader
Miss Schrcner revives IN this book something
Of an aegorcal method which belonged to her
STORY of an African Farm and which she has
employed even more exclusively in her later
books. But there is a strong ethical idea at the
bottom Of her visionary scheme. and in the
present instance she has kept her ideality OK
traordinary real and tangible. less gifted
writer would have gone to pieces utterly over
such a conception as is here set forth. Trooper
Peter Haket lost on the wide veldt and sunk In
dreams of material prosperity az he gaZes into
his fire. Is surprised by Christ and saved from
his selfish plans by the strenuous pleadings of
his divine Vistant. The pleadnss are not
direct until toward the end Of the colloquy. Up
to that point they implied in the terrific
charges brought against the whites in Africa
by this sorrowing Christ. The trooper is moved.
and In the second part of the book we find him
protesting against the murder of a black man
caught on the voldt helping the mar to escape
when protest has been in vain. and meeting his
own death then at the hands OF the captain of
his troop. To have worked out drama ike
this with its supernatural element, and yet to
have kept It as sane and convincing as though
il were a mere matter of fact is surely to have
succeeded where nine authors out OF ten would
have failed Never has Olive Schrelner written
more clearly more convincingly. with more pas
sion and eloquence. If it is thought that she
the Matabeles any Of the purely beautiful pas
sages in her most famous book, there are de-
scrptive lines In the later work to show that
this presumption is wrong. The narrative opens
finely and the majestic. mysterious character
Of the veldt at night is interpreted with as
much deIicacy and insight Trooper Hal
ket's emotions. There runs through the whole
strange tale that curious poetry which this
author alone seems To have the power of ex-
tracing from the wide African prairies, the
still starless African night. The fantastic
Wheeling sound made by the wind among the
grasses creeps into the pages. There is not the
smallest hint that Miss Schreiner has deliber-
ately set out 10 enrich her picture with local
color" 1t is alive with the colors of life, and
as artessly as though it could not help itself
To turn from the poetic beauty Of this nara
tive to its passionate diaectics is to become
conscious Of the authors sickening disgust with
English rule in South Africa and to see in Cecil
Rhodes brute who would sacrifice human souls
to his greed for gold with no more conjunction
than he would feel in cooking a bird at his camp
fire for food. Is Olive Schreiner right or wrong?
Who can say? The reaction has already set In
and Cecil Rhodes, with his defiance and his
strength. has many with him as against him.
perhaps more, he fences with the Parlia-
mentary Committee appointed to examine into
his dealings with South Africa. Indeed he has
cynically admitted his completely in the Jane
son raid and does not want for powerful sup
porters who say in print and out Of 1t that since
he has acknowledged his fault he should be left
to continue his work Of consolidating the British
power in South Africa But what about that
work, asks Olive Schreiner, what about the
bloody foundation on which 1t rests. what about
beasts that perish the broken faith the burned
kraals and slaughtered cattle-what about the
curse Of Mammon that has fallen upon South
Africa with this British rule, and transformed a
heaven into hell? 1t liz not from Johannesburg
that these bitter questions are launched, not
from a crowded city with political factions fore
ing men this way and that 1t is from the silent
prairie, from the heart OF the vedt. from the
remote plains upon which the Chartered Com
pany, If are TO believe Olive Schreiner. has
hacked and hewn its way to possession with no
more consideration for the ignorant blacks than
II. as we have said they were below the beasts
that perish. "Oh, they don't feel, these mig
gers" observes one Of the English troopers in
this book, mot as we should. you know. I've
seen man going to be shot, looking full at the
guns and falling like that'-wthout a sound.
They've no feeling. these niggers don't sup
pose they care much whether they live or die
not should. you know" 1T is this man.
ner Of regarding the blacks that Olive Schreiner
attributes TO the Chartered Company and all
its servants, and how she regards the respon-
sbity Of Rhodes. the head centre Of the
business. is indicated by the words she puts in
his mouth when Christ is proposing that the
noted millionaire be exhorted to undo the evil
he has done Let the English explain away, II
they can. the murder and rapine which Olive