Evening star., 1935-01-13
Continued From Third Page.)

Cape Town and ask for whatever ]
wanted in Dutch. Whenever gave a
lecture in English on Monday I was
supposed to even the score by giving
another on Tuesday in Dutch. and
when the prime minister asked me for
luncheon in Parliament House, We
spoke Dutch. During my entire stay
I saw only two Union Jacks. All other
flags were once more the old and
familiar orange, white and blue which
also flies over Mayor La Guardia's S
headquarters and all other official
buildings Of New York.
Old Dutch Garden.
And then past st. Helena. an old
Dutch vegetable garden. where the
ships Of the Dutch East India Co. used
to cure their sailors Of scurvy until
the company built its vast expert
mental gardens in Kaapstad tnow
Cape Towns public gardens), to Brazil,
where the oldest families still pride
themselves on their Dutch names. as
is also the habit among the best
families" of a certain city a. the
mouth of the Hudson River.
The thing seemed slightly absurd
A country of a million and a half
inhabitants (that was all 1t had in
the seventeenth century, that had
been everywhere, that had poked its
inquisitive nose and acquisitive fingers
into every nook and corner Of the
globe from Spitzbergen to that tiny
island of Amsterdam between Aus
tralia and South Africa where the
remnant OF Magellan's ill-fated ex-
pedition had filled its water casks. A
country that had destroyed the power
Of Spain and Portugal and held the
power of England at bay for CEN
tury while it established its domains
in Asia, Africa and America, leaving
Australia to itself merely because 1t
was considered an economic dead loss.
But what was even more astonishing
was the vitality Of these strange
people who had marched from one
end of Java to the other in heavy
wooden coats, carrying so pounds of
armor and armaments, and who had
penetrated into the heart of Africa
with their ancestral chairs and tables
and family Bibles.
Still Dominant.
For unlike some Of their COM
petitors, they are still going strong.
They still rule an island empire that
would cover the greater part of the
United States. Thirty years after
the terrible blood-letting Of the Boer
War, their race Is once more reas-
serting itself and is threatening within
the next generation to make the South
African Union an independent COM
monwealth that shall be Afrikaan
rather than English. While in the
realm of science and modern trans
portation it not only holds its own but
has achieved so much that it is still
in the front rank of those pioneers
who believe that complete mastery
over the forces of nature is the first
step on the road to complete human
emancipation.
I am not writing this in q spirit
of belated flag-waving. Flags, like
everything else in this world, are all
right in their own place-on the tops
of government buildings and ut the
stern Of q ship. Besides, voluntarily
left all that behind me. But had
always wondered why I was such an
utter misfit, and now I think that ]
know.
I had looked for my own country
at home and I finally found 1t abroad.
had been happy in my native land
only when could live in the imagi-
nary sphere of the seventeenth CEN
tury with its boisterous Joy Of living,
its sense of adventure. its independ-
ence of mind, and discovered these
qualities as fresh and buoyant as ever,
spread all over the globe. And now
these last few years. when perhaps !
myself am possessed Of q little more
patience than formerly, ! begin to
see that there are two Hollands In
stead ct ous.