BY H. RIDER HAGGARD THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO. L TD. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 1900 WORKS BY H. RIDER HAGGARD. The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved....

It has been suggested that at this juncture some students of South African history might be glad to read an account of the Boer Rebellion of 1881, its causes and results. Accordingly, in the following pages are reprinted portions of a book which I wrote so long ago as 1882. It may be objected that such matter must be stale, but I venture to urge, on the contrary, that to this very fact it owes whatever value it may possess. This history was written at the time by one who took an active part in t

The Transvaal is a country without a history. Its very existence was hardly known of until about fifty years ago. Of its past we know nothing. The generations who peopled its great plains have passed utterly out of the memory and even the tradition of man, leaving no monument to mark that they have existed, not even a tomb. During the reign of Chaka, 1813-1828, whose history has been sketched in a previous chapter, one of his most famous generals, Mosilikatze, surnamed the Lion, seceded from him

In or about the year 1872, the burghers of the Republic elected Mr. Burgers their President. This remarkable man was a native of the Cape Colony, and passed the first sixteen or seventeen years of his life, he once informed me, on a farm herding sheep. He afterwards became a clergyman noted for the eloquence of his preaching, but his ideas proving too broad for his congregation, he resigned his cure, and in an evil moment for himself took to politics. President Burgers was a man of striking pres

The state of affairs described in the previous chapter was one that filled the Secretary of State for the Colonies with alarm. During his tenure of office Lord Carnarvon evidently had the permanent welfare of South Africa much at heart, and he saw with apprehension that the troubles that were brewing in the Transvaal were of a nature likely to involve the Cape and Natal in a native war. Though there is a broad line of demarcation between Dutch and English, it is not so broad but that a victoriou

The news of the Annexation was received all over the country with a sigh of relief, and in many parts of it with great rejoicings. At the Gold Fields, for instance, special thanksgiving services were held, and "God save the Queen" was sung in church. Nowhere was there the slightest disturbance, but, on the contrary, addresses of congratulation and thanks literally poured in by every mail, many of them signed by Boers who have since been conspicuous for their bitter opposition to English rule. At

When the Liberal ministry became an accomplished fact instead of a happy possibility, Mr. Gladstone did not find it convenient to adopt the line of policy with reference to the Transvaal that might have been expected from his utterances whilst leader of the Opposition. On the contrary, he declared in Parliament that the Annexation could not be cancelled, and on the 8th June 1880 we find him, in answer to a Boer petition, written with the object of inducing him to act up to the spirit of his word

When Parliament met in January 1881, the Government announced, through the mediumship of the Queen's Speech, that it was their intention to vindicate Her Majesty's authority in the Transvaal. I have already briefly described the somewhat unfortunate attempts to gain this end by force of arms; and I now propose to follow the course of the diplomatic negotiations entered into by the ministry with the same object. As soon as the hostilities in the Transvaal took a positive form, causing great disma

The following pages, extracted from an introduction to a new edition to "Cetywayo and His White Neighbours," written in 1888, are reprinted here, because they contain matter of interest concerning the more recent history of the Transvaal Boers. Extract from Introduction to New Edition of 1888. The recent history of the Transvaal, now once more a republic, will fortunately admit of brief treatment. It is, so far as England is concerned, very much a history of concession. For an account of the fir

There were more murders and acts of cruelty committed during the war at Potchefstroom, where the behaviour of the Boers was throughout both deceitful and savage, than at any other place. When the fighting commenced a number of ladies and children, the wives and children of English residents, took refuge in the fort. Shortly after it had been invested they applied to be allowed to return to their homes in the town till the war was over. The request was refused by the Boer commander, who said that

The following extracts from the speeches, despatches, and telegrams of members of the present Government, with reference to the proposed retrocession of the Transvaal, are not without interest:— During the month of May 1880, Lord Kimberley despatched a telegram to Sir Bartle Frere, in which the following words occur: " Under no circumstances can the Queen's authority in the Transvaal be relinquished. " In a despatch dated 20th May, and addressed to Sir Bartle Frere, Lord Kimberley says, "That th

I reprint here a letter published in The Times of 14th October 1899, together with a prefatory note added by the editor of that journal. This epistle seems to me worthy of the study of thinking men. Much of it, most of it indeed, is mere brutal vapouring, false in its facts, false in its deductions; remarkable only for the livid hues of hate with which it is coloured. Yet in this vile concoction, the work evidently of a half-educated member of the Cape Dutch party, or perhaps of an Afrikander Ir