flowed its banks they absolutely thought they had struck
a source of the Nile, aud called it the Nile River Nyl-
stroom,” which name it still bears. The same clergyman
to whom I have referred also told me that in his travels
in the interior he had met most friendly Boers, who told
him they could not understand why such an intelligent
Englishman should preach to the Kafirs, who possessed
no souls. I have been assured by other competent and
long residents in the country, that the Boers look upon
the Kafirs as the descendants of Cain, and consider
any attempt to christianize them as trying to nullify a
curse of God. It is difficult to hear these views
openly expressed at the present day, and it will be
more so in future, now that there is a foreign and
critical community around; but it is these esoteric
beliefs that often govern the volitions of a people and
the government of a country. A friendly Boer once
speaking to an acquaintance about Matabele Land,
assured him it was a beautiful country and would one
day be taken over by the Boers, adding, seriously,
« God Almighty never made such a beautiful country
for Kafirs.”
The Boer treatment of the Kafirs is now certainly
much better than it was ; but in saying this I feel a great
reticence, for there are, and always have been, many
Boers of natural kindness of heart, than whom Kafirs
could have no better masters. But of others, and in
former times, the reverse is the fact, and t-hey treated
their Kafir labourers with savage harshness*. They
had not forgotten the long and sanguinary fights
necessary to dispossess the natives of their country,
nor of the savage reprisals and murders incidental to
the same. Reports are current, for which I will not
vouch, that, by degraded Boers, labourers once were
sometimes only paid at the expiration of their term
and then followed and shot for the recovery of the
* Burcliell gives an instance (‘ Travels in Interior of South Africa,’ vol. ri.
p. 95). See also Livingstone (‘Popular Account Missionary Travels and
Researches,’ new edit. p. 28).
money; whilst the poor wretches have often been
bound to an apprenticeship of 2 1 years (which they
did not comprehend), any attempts at escape being
met with savage floggings and shootings. But these
are not purely Boer characteristics. I remember the
floggings on English-managed eastern sugar-estates
twenty-three years ago, and the flagellations of the
Stanley expedition are not yet effaced from memory.
This conflict between Boers and Kafirs still quietly
exists. The following was published and guaranteed
as true by the ‘ Uitenhage Times \ of this year *
“ A Dutch farmer and his wife living far north in the
Transvaal, with no near neighbours, were surprised
one day by twelve strange Kafirs. The farmer, who
was outside the house, was bound hand and foot; then,
entering the house, the Kafirs began ill-treating the
poor woman, but on the suggestion of one of their
number, ordered her at once to cook a large pot of
mealie pap. This the poor woman did in the presence
of the Kafirs, although her clothes were torn from her
back, and she was almost naked. When the pap was
ready they all squatted round the pot and ordered
the woman to get them sugar. She had only a canister
and that was in the wagon box; she was told to
fetch it. She remembered also at the same time that
there was a bottle of poison in the wagon box, which
her husband had bought for killing wild animals.
Swiftly and secretly she shook the contents of the
little bottle among the sugar, and shaking the canister
well up, handed it to the Kafirs who helped themselves
liberally, with the result that in a short time they were
all suffering agonies and went outside one by one.
Trembling at what she had done, at the escape she
had from death or worse, and for the safety of her
husband, the poor creature waited in the house for
some time; but eventually went out and found all
twelve Kafirs dead, and her husband bound hand and
foot in the kraal, but otherwise uninjured. She
* Copied by tbe ‘ Press,’ Pretoria, Feb. 18, 1891,