The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-09-23
IN BoERLAND.
The Burghers Just After the War, and
Now.

OF their national life. AT the time of
their surrender they realized that they
were in bad way. They did not think
they were badly beaten. and, if their
attitude towards us was one of frank
surrender. there was. If not expressed,
at least implied, a suggestion of mag
nanimity towards an overpowering en-
envy that they had the power and half
the inclination to further harass. They
surrendered because they were tired
of the war-ninety-nine out of every
hundred burghers would tell you that.
1t was the spontaneous excuse of the
incoming mandoes-simply given
without qualification and without
amendment. I'VE are tired of the war
so we surrender" It was reply
given in no tone of boastfulness; with
no suggestion of anything but natural
and logical reply to the question, why
did you give .n?"
1t was the ilundredth man, the man
who spoke good French or German, and
whose first act ON arrival at the British
camp was to ask for bath. He it
was who shrugged his shoulders and
answered with laugh: Because we
are hopelessIy beaten" The terms of
peace were signed, and the Boer was
turned loose on the country-and he
talked. Not loudly or traitorously or
harmfully. He had surrendered, or
rather his leaders had for him: for his
part he would just as soon have gone
on fighting; something might have hap
pened. Who knows? A European
war in which Great Britain was en-
broiled might have been the Beers OPP
portunity. He was not faithful sub
ject of King Edawrd, and he would be
sorry to see Russia or Germany fighting
his own country; but if he had not
surrendered?
All of which pointed to one fact, and
a very interesting fact it was. The
Boer sharing a characteristic which is
beautiful in the Briton. but is trifie
alarming when displayed in the Boer,
did not know when he was beaten. And
the Boer out of the country-he came
back. He was very anxious to explain
to the Boer in the country exactly how
lit was he had been taken prisoner in
the early days, and quite willing to
adopt the theory, already sun-consci-
ously propounded, that the war had
ended because the lighting burghers
were tired of the constant trekking and
the unsettled life of the commando.
The British We're as tired--everybody
knew that. so there had been a formal
surrender of the Beers, a mutual agree.
ment that hostilities should cease and
amicable arrangements whereby the
dignity of neither should suffer. 1t was
quite reasonable this view.
You remember how we fell over one
another in our deslte to- weep on the
necks Of our late foes. how the SPLEEN
did good-fellowship Of the British was
made manifest. Our dearest friend is
not dearer than the foe we have just
thrashed. That is national trait, but
the Beer is no student, no thinker. Ac-
cording to the fights there could be but
one explanation for our effusiveness.
We were glad to get out Of the mess at
any price, for like him, we were tired Of
war, weary of our constant reverses and
the too frequent huniiliations, for
whic our periodic victories were most
inadequate compensation. After awhile
he began to find things out, did the
Boer. Every day that passed robbed
him of his complacency.
The days of war were not very far
behind him when he began TO realize
great truth, and IT has SO sobered him
that he does not seem like the Boer we
knew of other days but rather a civil.
quiet-spoken Improvement on the old
pattern-improved out of recognition
For the truth has come so slowly is the
fact that he is a badly beaten man.
The men whom he expectsasr to meet.
the brother, the father, the friend
what of them! He had believed that
they were with other commanders. or,
at the worst, in the hands of the hos
pitable British. When war was over, he
waited for them to appear, with all the
pleasure of anticipation. The missing
ones came not, but in their place came,
or sent, the folks who had seen them
die or had helped to bury them. This
was the first SOLDERING draught that
came to the Boer The Boer losses were
much heavier than he had been led to
believe.
In. Great Britain there are unfor-
tunately, many homes devastated by
war; there are vacancies which even
time, that fell destroyer of ideals who
turns the beautiful to commonplace.
can never fill. But think Of a nation no
single member of which but has lost a
relative.
I think am right in saying that no
one Boer family in South Africa came
through the war, and not one
third Of the losses were ever realized
until the war ended. The little village
cliques were broken and scattered, the
little makeshifts for society were de-
vastated, the dorp oracles whose illogi-
cal periods had filled the sunlit spaces
where the drowsy oxen. dozed
whose rude fingers had spun the wheel
war-ward--what of these? Dead, or,
worse still, traitors. Leaders, still re-
mained.s but they were leaders whose
life's energies had been devoted to pro-
noting hostility to Britain, and whose
faculties other than the destructive had
become atrophied by long disuse.
Relationship, comradeship, society, all
had been changed. The national ideals
could no longer exist, they must be re-
The homes they had lived
in, the owns they were born in, wrecked
and levelled, gave them no tangible hold
on the past, afforded them no loose end
to which they might splice the new life
to tho old and resun1n TT roea,,t q frasb