THROUGH. YANKEE GLASSES. THE WAR AS AN AMERICAN COUSIN SEES IT.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 11, 13 January 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

THROUGH. YANKEE GLASSES. THE WAR AS AN AMERICAN COUSIN SEES IT.

SIN SEES IT. Mr. Ralph, the distinguished American journalist, is engaged by the Daily Mail to descfibe the war from an independent standpoint. He telegraphs to us that he is diow at De Aar, but the censor forbids his cabling at present. Two letters, the third and fourth of a series he is beginning, have reached us. The remainder may have arrived by the mail last night, but have not been delivered. That we print below is numbered three by Mr. R^alph. Mr. Ralph will follow the war from start to finish for the Daily Mail. CAPETOWN. A German correspondent took me aside in the City Club and said : "You see, the Boers have been playing us all for fools. They have allowed the world to believe that they can only tight behind rocks, and while the British acted on this beliof they have come right out in the open and given the British a huge surprise, bottling up Kimberley, and cutting off all communication with it, besides capturing trains, destroying bridges, and all the rest." Almost as he spoke, out of his dense ignorance, an American born in Natal, and now a man of wealth and position in South Africa, drifted to our group and told us his very different opinion ot the enemy. "The British talk about keeping on the defensive until their whole force is in position in December ; but, mark my words, it will all be over before then. I Avas born among the Boers, I speak their language, I have hunted with them, seen them hi war, been intimate with them in all the States and colonies, and I tell you they will nob hold out. They are fanatics, but their fanaticism only goes so far. They have never seen more than a thousand British in war, and those they have potted at from behind rocks while the British were wh»!ly exposed. They have an idea this is always to be the rule. I can cite you instances in several Avars with natives where the Boers absolutely refused to occupy positions of danger. They want to kill, but do not at all relish being killed. They are so closely related, and there are so few families, that the killing of a Boer makes mourning in forty families-. The killing of forty Boers would practically put the whole Transvaal in mourning. "I will predict very close to the truth of what is going to happen. To begin with, they detest discipline, and always dispute with their leaders. Every man who knows them will tell you that even when they make up a hunting party they waste the best time of the day arguing oVer every plan that is proposed. Englishmen who hunt with them have learned to say to them, 'You slay here and dispute, but we are going in such a direction,' and then they go off and leave the Boers to follow them : In war they will want to argue every plan that is proposed, and they will rapidly grow more and more discontented. Their rule of life is for each Boer to look out for himself. "All are farmers, and each man in the field has loft his affairs with no one in charge. They arc not professional soldiers like tho English, they are not willing to die like the English, they are not paid like the English. By-and-by they will begin to go home. They will say that they must look after their farms, and when they decide to do so, nothing can stop them. I passed through the Transvaal a few days ago, and I had two remarkable conversations which go 'to show how peculiar the Boers are. The first talk was with a man who had been sent to a Boer house to (Jollect some taxes that were long overdue He rode up to the house, called out the head of the, family, and stated his errand. The Boer turned on his heel and went into the house. Presently he came out again with his gun. 'See here,' said he, 'I own this house and all the land as far as you can see around you. It is mine. lam king here. You go" back and tell Paul Kruger that if he sends another man here to get that five pounds of taxes I will kill the man. As for you, if you say any more ,about it I will shoot you.' My second talk was with a field cornet. Said he, 'Tfiey are talking of going to war with the English. Well, my people ail hate the damned English, but they are not satisfied with the way things are going. They tell me that .they hear that Oom Paul is rich ; that he rides in a carriage, and does no work. They say they are poor and are getting nothing out of the Government stealings, and that if they are sent to war Kruger had better look out, or they f may come with their guns and ask him 'to divide with them?' " "I want to see the Boers," said I. "I think of going to Stellenbosch to see them in their homes. Is that a good place to go?" "No. You might as well go to Picca-dilly-circus to see the English farmer or the Scotch Highlander. The Boers in the Cape Colony are so different from those in the Transvaal that we never call them Boers. We speak of them as Afrikanders. They are one hundred years ahead of the Transvaal Boer. They are refined. They have schools and colleges. They have never been far or long removed from civilisation and the English. You will get "very wrong ideas if you go and see the Cape Dutch and write them up as Boers. •Would you like me to describe a Transvaal Boer home and family? Very well, I know them nearly all, and have stopped with scores of them, for they are kindly and hospitable, except when their animosities are aroused. A Boer house is a building made of brick and roofed with zinc. It is divided into two rooms, with a wing, or lean-to at the back. That wing is the kitchen where the Kaffir girl works. The other two rooms are the bedroom and the eatfng room. The floor of all the rooms is made of ant-hill earth stamped down and painted over with diluted cow-dung, sometimes mixed with blood. This gives the floor a glossygreen surface. The sleeping-room has" a3 many beds as are required— usually a large one for the man and his wife, and another for the children Often you will see the children's bed pushed under that of the parents'. The eatingroom contains a long table and some chairs, seateji and backed with strips of leather. There will be another smaller table, covered with American oilcloth, on which the frau keeps a white glass sugardish and perhaps a green glass spoon jar such as are given away with a pound of tea at Homo. These and some lithographs pinned up without frames are the only ornaments, and a sort of settee with a seat made of leather strips completes the furniture. Are the people cleanly? Well, they are apt to wipe the plates and the baby's face at the same time and with the same cloth, and after you have eaten your corn porridge and dried beef and sweetcake the wife will eat hers off your dirty plate. Some women will turn your plate upside down and eat off the bottom, but that is considered putting on side. There may be a harmonium in the corner of the room, md if you can play any simple tunes the whole family will dance as long as you like to play. Foi books there is certain to be a Bible, and there will be a prayer book if they can afford it. They are religious, you know; that ia, they go to church and are fond of thinking themselves in God's keeping, but they never let religion interfere with business. At a horse trade they will cheat the back teeth out of your head. "You have heard that they sleep in their clothes? Well, the man takes off his coat and waistcoat, and sleeps in the rest that he has on. . The wife drops 6ff an outer skirt, perhaps, before she gets into -bed. Of late, extra rooms have been, added to the houses of the better class Boers ; but in the old-style, typical two -roomed house, whoever stops over nj^ht must^leefi tfiflx jhe old jolks.or obil-

dran. When you sleep with the old folka the husband always takes tho middle of tho bed. A story which I know to be true is told of Bishop AJcrriman. Ho was onco entertained m this way, and when he woke ia the morning he found that the Boer had crept out to look after his cattle. He- gave one glance ,at his steeping companion, and dropped out of bed as quickly as if he had been thrown out. As to the ablutions, you will seldom see a Boer with a clean face. Ono of them has written to a Capetown relative that his people will not wash until they have driven the British into the sea. That sounds impressive, but will not entail much hardship upon his people. "They tell a story about Paul Kruger's 'polish' after ho had been to London and seen the Queen and Mr. Gladstone. It is not a true tale, but it might easily be true of the average Boer. The story goes that whon Kruger came home, and was about to get into bed, his wife came in and saw him dressed in a suit of pyjamas. 'Paul !' she exclaimed, 'what are you doing Avith those English fool clothes? Take them off and put on your trousers, and go to bed like an honest burghor.' "As to their intelligence, you know the very old story of the Englishman who was walking through the Cape Colony, and was warned not to say that he was English in any house*- where he "\yas asking for a meal. He always said he was 'from Yorkshire,' and was handsomely treated. I don't know whether that is true or not, but it is not an exaggerated illustration. There was a leading Transvaal Boor who said to mfc the other day that his countrymen would not stop until they have driven the English- into Table Bay. 'And then,' ■ said he, 'we shall go on and capture England.' 'How can you do that without ships?' I asked him. 'Oh,' said he, 'how did Moses get the chidren of Israel across the Red Sea? Thay did not need any ships. Just in the same fashion God will find a way for U«.' Another Boer who was talking of England said to me, "I suppose you can see England from Capetown, can't you?' " Finally my friend closed his remarks by saying that it was impossible to give a clear idea of th© Boers in such a short talk. He cautioned me to recollect that there are the Dutch in Cape Colony, who are 100 yean ahead of the better-class Dutch who live in houses in the Transvaal. These, he said, are the ones about whom I have been speaking. But these, in turn, are far ahead of the Boers who move north and south with their cattle every year and live at least, a part of the time in tents. — Julian Ralph, in the Daily Mail. TELEGRAPHING FROM' BATTLEFIELDS. KAFFIRS QUICKER THAN TELEGRAPH. The battle of Majuba Hill was (says the Daily Mail) fought on 27th February, 1881. Pioteimaritzburg is as nearly as possible 150 miles- from Majuba. Yet the native servants of officers quartered in that garrison town heard the news of the battle and told their masters of the result within ten hours, and long before any official telegraphic information came through. Again, tho total defeat of the Zums at Ulundi, in 1879, was heard of ~v the natives at a distanco of 270 miles within twelve hours. How is it done? Many explanations have been offered, but none of them are entirely satisfactory. Perhaps the most plausible explanation for the rapid transmission of news is the following : — The various Kaffir languages, particularly that spoken by the Zulus, have very many broad open vowels. The "a" is pronounced as in "father." Such words as "amba-gashle" (go carefully), "ikona lnali" (no money), "hamba kaya" (go home) are all words that carry far. The natives are said to shout to one another from hilltop to hilltop, and these long-drawn-out vowels con be heard for immense distances. The extremely rarefied air of the high veldt also helps the sound to travel ; and a chain of natives being arranged, one on each hilltop, four or five miles apart, the message flies from one to another with amazing rapidity. Another explanation which seems less likely, although many old residents among natives declare it is true, is the tapping of an outcrop of ironstone or other magnetic mineral with a succession of light blows after the manner of a Morse alphabet. These, it is said, can be heard along the whole length of the outcrop, even if the reef dives underground for miles, and then reappears on the surface. The recipient places his ear on to the stone and receives the impression of the taps over a 'distance of many miles. Where there is a stream of running water it is known to be possible ""to convey sounds along the surface over a considerable length, thereof. But this would hardly be applicable to the South African natives' methods, as the streams through the veldt flow only for a few months in the summer, and then only intermittently, after thunderstorms ; for the rest of the year they are practically diy beds of sand and rock. Whatever their method may be, it has been proved over and over again that natives get news of any great event, reported accurately and succinctly, long before ib is flashed across the telegraphic wires. A MILITARY SHERLOCK HOLMES. Colonel Baden-Powell, the defender of Mafeking, according to "M.A.P. ," is the Sherlock Holmes of the British Army. When in India he regularly practised making deductions from every day incidents in order to complete his training as a successful cavalry scout. Just before the commencement of hostilities in the present war he put the finishing touches to a volume dealing with aids to scouting, and one or two deligntful pieces of autobiography are introduced by way of illustration. A good scout must be a good detective, and must be able to read every sign that will reveal the presence of the enemy. Colonel Baden-Powell had trained himself to identify distant objects, and he tells how, on one occasion, he won a bet when riding with the Btaff at the Berkshire manoeuvres. It was a misty day, and on a neighbouring hill were seen four' parties, which one officer said were squadrons of cavalry, and another" offered to bet were guns. For himself, he saw one individual cross over from one party to the next, which made him willing to Let that they were sheep. An orderly was sent to Bee, and sheep they proved to be. An excellent illustration of the Sherlock Holmes methods which Baden-Powell employs in scouting occurred during the Matabele war. Riding one day across an open grass plain, he suddenly noticed that the- grass had been recently trodden down. Following up the track', he soon found that it was the "spoor" of several women and boys, going m the direction of the enemy. There v^ere no trees near, and a tell-tale leaf which he saw lying a few yards off the track convinced him that the party had uomc from a village some fifteen miles distant where trees with leaves of this k'lid grew. The leaf was damp and smelt of native beer. He guessed, therefore, that women and boys, according to th-iir custom, had been carrying pots of rative beer on their heads, and that the mouths of the pots had been stopped with bunches of leaves. That it was lying ten yards off the track sh"wrd to the military Sherlock Holmes that a wind had been blowing at the time it fell. It was then nearly seven in Ihe morning, and there was no wind, but there had been a breeze about two hours beforej, Baden*Pj>weH read from thue

signs that during the night a party ot women had brought beer from the village, fifteen miles distant, and had taken it to tho enemy on the hills, arriving there about six o'clock. He lurthor guessed that tho men would probably start to drink the beer at once, and thai by the time he could reai'h them they would be getting sleepy from it, and therefore give him a iavomiible ■.•hancj of reconnoitring their position. He accordingly followed the women's track?;, found the enemy as ho supposed, made Ins observations, and got away with valuable information without any diilicuUy. The story gives us a key to the "ucrtys of Colonel Baden-Powell in defending Mafeking against the Boers.