The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-10-20
THE AFRIGANDERS
LOVE SOUTH AFRICl

| NJ L. Rayne in the Chicago Times-TIerald.
While Kipling is bidding the English peo-
| pie in heroic verse not to listen to the
old king, Oliver Schreiner the champion of
the Beers, comes out in an appeal on the
South African question and tells in fascinat-
ing sentences of a brave, free, fearless folk
with the blood of the old sea kings in their
veins, a branch OF that old Teutonic race
Which came with the Angles and Saxons
into England and subdued the Britons, and
who in the persons of the Franks entered
I Gaul and spread its blood across Europe
| A people most akin to the English of all
European folk, in language form and fea-
ture resembling them, and in a certain dog
| ged persistence and an kalienable indie
structibie air of personal freedom.
Continuing, this earnest writer WHO was
| born and reared in South Africa, and to
| whom the African hills and plains are a
| dear heritage, and the people her own kins-
folk goes on to say:
Even under the early Dutch government
| of the East India company they were not
| always restful, and resented interference
ana external control. They frequently felt
themselves 'ondergedrukt' (oppressed), and
| taking Their guns and getting together wife
| and children and all that they mad, and
| inspanning their wagons, they 'trekked'
away from the scant boards of civilization
into the wilderness to form homes of free
dom for themselves and their descendants"
|
Men and women are stil1 living" saws
| Oliver Schreiner WHO can remember how
| sixty years ago, the spot where the great
| mining camp of johannesburg now stands
| was great silence, where they drew nm
! their wagons and planted their little homes
| and fought inch by inch with wild beasts
| to reclaim the desert. In this great NORTH
| ern land which no white man had entered
or desired, they planted their people. and
| loving dt as only men can love the land
they have suffered and bled for. the gal
| liant little republic they raised. thew Iowa
today as the Swiss loves his mountain
ZONE and the Hollander his dikes 1t is
THEIRS the best land on earth to them"
|
| An old man and young woman have
| made the name of South Africa famoue
one with pen, the other possibly with a
sword. The girl who exploited the Trans
vaal, and the old voorbrekkers. in the pages
| OF romance which reused the interest of
| a world of readers writer's of this strange
country, now in the throes of disintegration
| through war this plural apostrophe of love
| and devotion:
Born in South Africa our eyes first
| opened on these African hills and plains.
around us, of other parentage, but born
| withus in the land our birth fellows were
| men of another white race and we grew
up side by side with them. Is 1t strange
that, like all men living who have the
| hearts of men, we learned to love this land
| in which we first the light? When we
| stood on the Alps and looked down on the
| lakes and forests of Switzerland we have
| said: This is fair, but South Africa to us
Is fairer.' When on the top of Milan Cathe-
| dral and we have looked out across the wide
| plains of Lombardy we have said: This
| is noble, but nobler to us are the broad
| plains of Africa, with their brown kopjes
| shimmering in the translucent sunshine
| Is it strange that when We are In other
| lands and death approaches us we say:
| Take me back! We may live away from
| her, but when we dead we must lie
| on her breast. Bury us among the kopjes
| where we played when we were children,
| and let the iron stones and red sand
| cover us!''
| The great plea which the writer of South
African literature makes against war is
| that England is the mother country and
cannot in the name of humanity lift hand
against her own. The concluding sentences
| of the book were written on the eve of the
queens birthday, when the first echo of
war crept around the world like secret
story or a bated breath. On the 2ith of
| May, 1899, Olive Schreiner wrote: "Who
gains by war? Not the great woman whose
eighty years tonight completes, who would
carry with her to her grave the remem-
brance of the longest reign and the purest;
who would have that when the nations
gather around her bier the whisper shall go
round, that was mothers hand-it struck
no child Who gains by war? Not the
brave English soldier-there are no laurels
for him here. The dying lad with hands
fresh from the pow, the old man lettering
to the grave, who seizes up the gun to die
with 1T, the simple farmer who he falls
hears yet his wife's last whisper, for free
dom and our native land!' and dies hear
ing it-these men can bind no laurels on
soldiers brow! They may be shot, not con-
quered-fame rests with them. Go, gallant
soldiers, and defend the shores of that
small island that We love: there
laurels for you here"
1t did not need this incendiary work to in
flame the hearts of the men of South At
RIGA, nor has the little volume been pro-
scribed, as 1t would have been in France or
Russia, had it been a partisan publication.
The prophecy of the writer has yet to be
proved that in any case England will win.
She dares to say that it may not be vic
tory, but at least it will be a slaughter,
and adds this most pathetic climax:
II suppose there is no man who today
loves his country who has not perceived
that in the life of the nation, as in the life
of the individual, the hour of external sue
cess may be the hour of irrevocable failure.