The Opelousas courier., 1900-02-24
BoERs, sPANlARDs AND KAFFIRs.
The T~ransvaal People Have the Bat
Habit of Procrastinating.

SOPsC u IA DoNS
Habit of Procrastinating.
Robert T. Martin of San Francisco
was assistant superintendent of one
Of the Rand mines in 1896, and spent
q year in the T%ransvaal. In speaking
OF the Beers he said recently:
"The first thing that strikes you on
entering the Transvaal, as soon as you
cross the border on the Netherlands
railroad, is the intense antagonism
and animosity the Beers show toward
anything English. / happened to be
in a compartment in which th: ee or
four E%nglishmen were my fellow trav-
elers, n of whom was q member of
the Cape Town Parliament. The next
section. to ours was occupied by q
number of Beers, who were returning
from a fair which had been held at
Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The
Beers began to sing patriotic songs
extolling their fatherland, the Trans
vaal, and deriding the English.
"For some reason I CHANGED to 60
out into the passageway running past
the compartments, where I overheard
a heated discussion which was going
on between the Dutchmen as to what
was the color of the English flag. 3
This discussion waxed fierce, but
came to a sudden climax, when one
old Boer of gigantic frame rose sud
denly to his feet and raising his hand
shouted with great vehemence: You
ask what is the color of the English
flag? I will tell you, for I have seen
it three times-once at Majuba Hill,
again at Laing's Mex, and the third
and last time when we captured DIR.
jameson andhis raiders at Dornkorp.
On each of these occasions I saw the
English flag plainly and near at hand,
and its color was always white
"The yell of delight that followed
this statement was simply deafening.
Each Of the other Beers in turn shook
the old man by the hand, and then
they all fell to singing, what I later
found to be their favorite song, the
burden of which was that they (the
Boers) would sweep the English into
the sea.
"As you can imagine the incident
made a deep impression on my mind,
and ! have felt eve since that day that
a to the death fight between the two
nations was inevitable, the only ques-
tion being as to when it would come.
It has come now, and if the dispatches
read true the end is already in sight;
but of this I must confess to doubts.
But be that as it may, whether 1t comes
now or six months later, there can be
but one end to this war, and that end
the complete disappearance of the
Beers as an independent power in
South Africa.
s'This will be for the good of the
world, for the Beers are as unprogres-
siye as the Kaalrs, and both Boer and
Kafir, in their desire to put off until
tomorrow that which, should be done
today, bear a striking resemblance to
our antagonists of last year.
"The favorite Spanish word IL
'Manana,' which means tomorrow
as every one knows. You ask a Saap~
lard to do anything, and he
wer, sManana.' You ask a Boer and
he will reply, Malkanbeche' (al-
though I can't guarantee this spell
ing), which means Wait awhile Ask
q Kafir and he will answer, 'Ikorah-
bass" which means No, boss There
is q rather complete analogy between
the three, but Of them the Kafir is
the most honest, a. he tells you in the
first place he won't do it, while Boer
and Spaniard infer that they may do
it later whereas they eve intend to
at all. Tribune.