In South Africa With Buller

IN SOUTH AFRICA WITH BULLER BY GEORGE CLARKE MUSGRAVE AUTHOR OF TO KUMASSI WITH SCOTT, WEST AFRICA FETISH, THE CUBAN INSURRECTION, UNDER THREE FLAGS IN CUBA From Sketches by Rent Bull, Maud, R. Caton WoodvUle and other War Artists BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1900 Copyright, 1900, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY All rights reserved Introduction IT is too early, at this date, to record the history of the South African war. We live in an age, how ever, when interest is ephemeral, and, unless one is content to write for reputation alone, a work must be published during the height of public interest to com mand success. Thanks to electricity and newspaper enterprise, gifted writers now erect very readable books around the slender fabric of cable despatches. The author who has gathered his material at the risk of life and health, and at great expenditure of energy and money, returns to find his work anticipated by perhaps half a dozen books written by men who have never left the security of their own homes. It is a noteworthy fact that after the Spanish-American war, with perhaps one exception, the most successful books were penned by writers who never were in Cuba. Their works are a comedy of errors from Alpha to Omega, but they were issued when the popular feel ing was inflamed with victory, and their accuracy was not questioned. Hence the need of rapid preparation. The dust and heat of South Africa do not inspire literary style, and chapters written on horseback, vii Introduction after sixteen hours in the saddle, lack the polish bestowed by writers reclining in comfort and clean linen. I had planned to write a personal story, after the prevailing fashion, but finding that peerlessartists were preparing word pictures of the campaign, I concluded that a plain account of the war and its causes, based on personal observation and investiga tion, would supply a want within my limitations. Thanks to prominent Afrikanders, who were ex ceedingly anxious that I should present their side in the United States, their views and aspirations were freely brought to my notice. But familiarity with the Taal is apt to breed contempt, and though one cannot be blind to the machinations of capitalists and the blunders of imperialists and ultra loyalists, a careful review of facts will lead true Americans, as lovers of universal liberty, to realize that the only hope for South Africa lies in its federation under the almost republican constitution guaranteed by the British flag. Boer, or rather Taal, ideals are in antithesis to liberty and progress. They are founded on hatred of the Anglo Saxon, a hatred based on past injustice but fanned to flame by intriguing foreigners controlling the Transvaal. The Orange Free State, founded as a republic by the British Foreign Office, and always on terms of cordiality with Downing Street, was in part induced to take up arms against a traditional friend by the possibilities of Dutch supremacy in South Africa, viii Introduction and the money provided by corrupt concessionaires in the Transvaal subverted the allegiance of thousands of the more ignorant Taal-speaking British subjects by the same idea. The misapprehension of British intentions not withstanding, the Boer raid into the Colonies was unjustifiable aggression it was, from first to last, a war of conquest and subjugation. The great sym pathy that I had for the Boers vanished when I saw theirruthless devastation and method of extending their rule toward Cape Town. Patriots seeking to fight an army that may menace their existence do not war on women and children, or force citizens to take up arms against their own. country, turning out on the bare veldt those who refuse, looting their homes and crops. I have seen much of revolution. For three years I was a sym pathetic witness of the Cubans in their struggle for freedom from Spains grip. I would that the ultra Afrikanders could take a lesson from those ignorant but self-sacrificing peasants...