The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-24
Another Book on south Africn.

ana original account OF IT, ana MI iNa4pi
does not trespass on any ether writer's
ground. To be brief. he has written OF
the war in the style of the special CORE
sponGent. and has produced a book which
is exceedingly good newspaper stuff
though not in any sense a comprehensive
history, or intended to be one. To many
people it will be more entertaining and
thus more valuable than more pretentious
work
The author is clearly prejudiced in favor
of the British side of the question
though his prejudice appears to have been
acquired through personal observation Of
the conditions on the scene of warfare,
and not brought to the Cape with him.
In this he resembles many other Ameri-
cans and English not personally interested
in military operations or in the fortunes
OF the Transvaal.
The style of the book is, as has been
said, that of the newspaper and it is
graphic. vivid. and full of detail, which
makes it interesting. A specimen of the
picturesque language which Mr.. Ralph
uses in describing things not in themselves
particularly fascinating is to be found in
the first chapter. In regard TO Lord
Methuen, introducing the general subject
of the country Of the Boer; he says:
Lord Methuen seemed for a
time to be conducting a military waltz
rather than a mere promenade from
the Orange River to Kimberley We
shall see that it was the country of
the Beers that he was lighting, quite
as much, If not more, than the Beers
of the country.
Then he describes the aforesaid country
thus:
THE South American veldt is the
most easily defended country in the
world-the best defensive country is
how military man might put it. on
every mile or two there is natural
fort-or half a dozen of them. These
are the so-calied kopies. short, thick,
volcanic looking hills, often with
squared-off summit or a crater-like
bowl on the top, such as MaJuba has.
They are rocky hills. but not rocky
as the reader is likely to understand
the term, for they are nothing but
rocks-hills made of rocks. so that the
surface is fretwork of the outer
most powders Between and around
these kopjes lies the veldt, which al
WAYS looks level, but is never so.
10 looks level because it is a dead
and dull monotony of baked earth,
sage tufts and stones. any single acre
being precisely like the next hundred
or ten thousand. Instead of being
smooth it rises and falls in earth bill
lows, and often in the depression be-
hind the ridge of such billow an
army can move. / have seen a long
railway train lost on an apparently
level veidt when 1t turned into one of
these deDresSions. But there is far
better cover for the Beers than these
afford. There are the so-called null
labs and spruits. which seam the
yeldt in millions of places. No one
can see them until he is almost upon
them. yet there troops can move un-
seen on horseback. In hundreds of
them the whole Boer army could ride
invisible for miles
OF the situation in the battle of Modder
River he says:
las a rule the adjacent land slopes
toward a river. but South African
topography violates all rules, and at
this place the land inclined downward
and away from the stream, so that
every object as large as jack-rab
bit could be seen by the entrenched
There appears now. to have been
nothing but luck in our winning that
battle. 1t was the former belief that
there were over seven or eight thou
sand Beers In the trenches, but there
were nothing like so many, in all prob
ability. Yet they held the British fat
they pumped lead over their heads as
/ verify believe bullets were never
shot before. They did no other fight
ing than to stay in gutter and shoot:
1t was their country that perplexed
and hindered the British most, for
many of them did not even know the
Beers whereabouts. They never saw
them AT last handful Of ever
valorous. recklessly brave men got
across the river and cheered with an
Anglo-SaXon Hip, nip, hurr2h" in or
der to warn a British battery and
some Of their own men not to con-
tinue shooting in that direction. At
this sound the Beers. imagining that
ten thousand men were about to flank
them, took alarm and fed.
But South African land formation
hos ,,r.f .arafa tod rel Wit "a
ing her lo-ds and masters merely with
hollows ridges. SHUTS, spruits, and
kopjes. In order to provide FORTH
cation to every square mile of the
land. she has devised stone breast
works. These are oftenest found at the
foot of a kopje. but the rule has such
plentiful exceptions that no ore can
know where he Will come across a
collection of great powders behind
which men may hide and attack wild
game or human foe. These collections
of great black rocks may comprise
few in an irregular line or TWO, or
they may cumber square half mile OF
the veldt, thrown over it thickly and
IN confusion"
He gives a very bad picture of the |
Boer. This is part of it:
There is never an excess OF poetry
In war, but one phase of it that was
sentimental, IL not poetic, has always /
been the tendency of opposing pickets
TO establish a show Of camaraderie.
In the fight between the North and
the South in America the pickets eX-
changed cigars and tobacco. and in
that between America and Spain last
year they conversed together, and ex-
changed gifts. In the war waged by
the Boer against the Briton the Boer
has crept up like a snake in the grass
to kill the outposts on every field since
the war began.
when the British entered Jacobsdal
IL looked like city Of doctors. Every
man in the streets wore Red Cross
badge on his arm. These were the
men who had just been shooting at
the British from behind the garden
walls. There was nothing novel or
original about their seeking the cow
ardly shelter of a doctors badge The
British were quite accustomed to II.
They once entered a Boer lager after
q victory and found twenty-seven OF
these bogus doctors in it-and seven or
eight wounded men for their patients"
Mr.. Ralph treats Cronje with scant re-
pect, saying that this bushwhacking
hieftain has been treated as II he were
mother Napoleon Whether that is in
my measure true or not. there seems to
'e no doubt that the author res IS Lord
Roberts IN somewhat that light, and the
lecture which he gives Of the little British
General is not only a very pleasant one.
nut probably correct. There is a spir-
ted defence of him about halfway
through the book, which is worth quot
ng:
so mercural is humanity and so
nckle is people entrusted with self
government, that since / came home
] have read in the pages of a daily
journal Jubilant leader calling gen
eral attention to the wonders per
formed by Lord Roberts In one month,
and yet in another month the same
EDITORS were wondering how his later
inaction could be explained
IN the nrst editorial we learned that
In one short month this modern MARI
borough and Wellington had relieved