occupied parts. In the other case, rich and poor, old and young,
went off as in the days and in the fashion of Moses or Abraham. They
went without leave or help of the Government; secretly or openly
they went, and they asked nothing but to be left alone. They left
their homes, their people, the protection of an established
Government and a rough civilization, and went out into the unknown.
And they had, as it appeared to them, and as it will appear to many
others, good reasons for taking so grave a step. For, although the
colonists of South Africa enjoyed better government, and infinitely
more liberty, under British rule, than they had under the tyrannical
_régime_ of the Dutch East India Company twenty years before
(against which the Boers had twice risen in rebellion) there were
many things which were not as they should have been. A generation
had grown up which knew nothing of the arbitrary and oppressive rule
of the old Dutch Company. Simple folks have long memories, and all
the world over injuries make a deeper and more lasting impression
than benefits; and the older generation of Boers, which could recall
a condition of things contrasting unpleasantly with British rule,
also remembered the executions of Slagters Nek--a vindication of the
law which, when all allowance has been made for disturbed times, and
the need of strong measures to stop rebellion in a newly-acquired
country, seems to us to-day to have been harsh, unnecessary, and
unwise in policy, and truly terrible in the manner of fulfilment.

The Boers have produced from their own ranks no literary champion to
plead or defend their cause, and their earlier history is therefore
little known, and often misunderstood; but to their aid has come Mr.
George McCall Theal, the South African historian, whose years of
laborious research have rescued for South Africa much that would
otherwise have been lost. In his 'History of the Boers' Mr. Theal