The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-03-18
BOERS IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA.
The REPORT That Kruger Will Join
Them If British, Win the Transvaal.

The REPORT That Kruger Will Join
Them il British, Win the Transyaal.
mt has recently been reported from
South Africa that President Kruger has
no intention of spending his declining
years in the Transvaal if the republic he
has fought so nard to preserve is over
thrown by the British. He had fully
decided. when the war began, that in
case his cause were irretrirably defeated,
he would retire to German Southwest
Africa and spend the rest of his life
under the German flag. Among the
Beers who have settled in the German
possessions is an intimate friend of the
president, who has acquired a large
tract of irrigable land and is engaged
in cattle raising. If worst comes to
worst, Mr.. kruger will join his friend
and live quietly in this newly develop
ing region, $50 miles from Pretoria.
Should coming events make it desirable
for him to adopt this course, ne will
be far from his beloved land whose poit-
cal and military fortunes he has helped
to shape for so many years, but he will
at least be free from such weighty cares
as he has borne since the influx of the
outlanders introduced new issues in
Transvaal politics.
The exiled statesman would find good
many of his compatriots in German South
west Africa. Since the first great migra-
tons Of the Boers in the third decade of
this century when they trekked north and
east to get out of sight Of the British
flag. there have been several minor emf
grations from the Transvaal. Some Of the
people did not find the Transvaal exactly
to their liking and SO they set out to find
new homes far north of the Zambesi and
plodded YEARLY across the wilderness for
five years before they reached the HULA
district of Portuguese West Africa, within
a hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean,
where they still live. In the past few
years other TransVaal Boers, believing
that the growing trouble with the out
landers could have no peaceful solution,
have also sought new homes, turning their
faces chiefly toward the vast region on
the Atlantic Coast which the Germans
were just beginning to develop. At tho
end Of last year, according to the statis-
tics of the Deutscllen kolonialblatt. 637 of
them women and children as we'll as men,
were living in the new country. They al
ready form % per cent of the total white
population and their families comprise
nearly half of the white women and chill
dren in the country, and these Beers now
form the majority Of those whites who
have gone to the country to make it their
permanent home. Soldiers and the admin
istrative force still form the largest ele-
ment in the white population.
More than half of the Beers are living
in the northern part of Great Mama
Land. The German explorers say tEat a
large part of the interior may be cen
verted into one Of the large cIttle res
gions of the world 1t would not be sur
prising, in the event of the overthrow of
the two Boer republics, If another great
trek" should take place. Hundreds of
the Beers who are determined rol to live
under the British flag may Journey in
their tent wagons across the Kalahara
waste to live under German r,;le on the
plains Of German Southwest Africa.-New
York Sun.