The Transvaa/ and Use Boers. By W. E. Garrett Fisher.
(Chap- man and Hall.)—It is a disheartening fact that no attention has been paid to the past history of the Boers by the politicians of the day, because no other race requires a more intimate knowledge of its antecedents to be understood. The Boers, who may be said to have originated about the beginning of the seventeenth century, have a mixed origin, there being much good honest Dutch blood, a strong touch of the Huguenot, and a dash of the tar-brush, and besides these three, the early days of Dutch occupation saw many desperadoes and queer characters who "left their country for their country's good." The race, however, as a whole has reverted to the Dutch character and type, and, physically speaking, it is without doubt a magnificent one. Mr. Fisher's account of the Boers is lucid and well-written, and eminently just and moderate. There can be no doubt that the fatal blot on the Boer character is the slave-holding propensity ; it was that which determined the "Great Trek" across the Vaal River. This, combined with a belief in themselves as Israelites and the black men as Canaanites, has led to some terrible deeds, and to a gradual sinking back of the race to the morale of the seventeenth century. Their ideas of warfare prove this. No one seems to realise that for two hundred and fifty years their only literature has been the Bible, and that their character bears a resemblance to that of extreme militant Puritans of the Rebellion. Mr. Fisher brings this out well, and it is a pity if some of us do not read his book. It is time the Foreign Office realised the absurdity of handling the Boers as if they were negroes, or trying to dragoon them. They are akin to those Hollanders whom the whole power of Spain failed to crush, and their ideas have not progressed an iota since that time; moreover, they are practically nomads, and fighting nomads too.
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