The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1900-05-31
THE BoER WOMEN.
SHARE PERILS OF HUSBANDS.
BROTHERS AND SONS
And Spur Them on to Resistance or
Death Their Heroic Work In tho
Ambulance and Hospital ServIce-The
Great Trek Of 1885. A


None but the elderly women among
the Transvaal Beers can remember the
great trek of 1885, when their fathers
and grandfathers abandoned the
homes they had made in Natal and
toiled up the passes to the lofty pla-
teau where they founded their repub-
lie. Those days were more trying than
any the Transvaal aver saw
until the present wa began. They
were still living in their tent wagons
when the terrible wars with the Mata-
belle branch of the Zulu tribe began,
and no women could show more won
derful spirit and constancy than those
wives and mothers of the Boer pion-
GERS in the midst Of appalling dangers
and h~ardships which did not end until
the Matabeles had been driven north
Of the Crocodile River. Not a few OF
these women and their children with
them, persisted by the assegais of saw
ages, but not one of them would have
dreamed of returning to the peaceful
homes and gardens in Natal which
they had left behind. The British had
proclaimed that country their own,
their ~colonists were pouring in and
the Beers would die before they would
come again under British rule.
The wives and mothers of the SOL
diers who now confront the British are
the descendants of those s~tout-hearted
husbands and boys, while savages
rushed upon the brush heaps that were
the sole protection around their laag-
ers. Perhaps no women in the
world have changed so little in two
generations. The women of the Boer
farmsteads are now just what their
grandmothers were when the Mata-
beles sought their lives. The Bible is
still their only book, they still prefer
a quiet, sedentary life and the simple
duties of their modest homes, and
they have scarcely risen in any respect
above the plane of intellectual Gull
tivation which their grandmothers oc-
cupied; and they are like their grand
mothers, too, in the courage, constan-
cy and sublime devotion in which they
are facing the awful trials of another
crucial period in the history of their
people. The women are doing every
thing they can to aid the soldiers in
the field. Hundreds of them are in the
field, and form the majority of the
working force in the ambulance and
hospital service. In their denuncia-
ton of the British they are far more
bitter and o%utspoken than the men
themselves, but in their mission OF
mercy they know no enemies. All the
wounded British soldiers who have
fallen into their hands have been
treated as brothers and friends. The
Boer nurses extend to them the same
care that they give to their own strick-
en- soldiers. The women throughout
the two republics exerted a powerful
influence in kindling enthusiastic sup.
port for the war when it became Ger
tain that the conflict could not b.
averted. They sent many of their SON.
into the commands or militia organi
cations, even though the striplings hat
not quite reached the age Of sixteen
when they are liable to military duty
One day a crowd at the railroad sta
ton in Pretoria was cheering a com
mando that was going to join Joubert'
army around Ladysmith. A mother il
the throng saw her young son with
gun over his shoulder and wearing
cartridge belt, just as he was enterin
a car. She followed him to his seat
and, laying her hand on his shoulder
said:
my boy, why did you not tell m
of this?"
Mother" he answered, perhaps
was wrong, but I could not bear to bi
you good-by. You were to be toll
just as soon as we left. You see
mother, it was my duty to go soone
or later, and I thought the sooner tn
better. Forgive me if I have don
wrong"
"You are right, my son." the moth
er replied. ut is your duty to go, an
1 am willing you should go, though
thought it might be better to wait
few months. Go, you have my bles
sing, but you should have told me.
She kissed him farewell, and ther
was a smile or her face as she left til
car, though tears stood in her eyes.