matters which concern the Boer as a party the President has his way
as surely and as completely as any anointed autocrat. To anyone who
has studied the Boers and their ways and policy--who has given more
than passing consideration to the incidents and negotiations of the
present year{01}--it must be clear that President Kruger does
something more than represent the opinion of the people and execute
their policy: he moulds them in the form he wills. By the force of
his own strong convictions and prejudices, and of his indomitable
will, he has made the Boers a people whom he regards as the germ of
the Africander nation; a people chastened, selected, welded, and
strong enough to attract and assimilate all their kindred in South
Africa, and then to realize the dream of a Dutch Republic from the
Zambesi to Capetown.

In the history of South Africa the figure of the grim old President
will loom large and striking--picturesque, as the figure of one who
by his character and will made and held his people; magnificent, as
one who in the face of the blackest fortune never wavered from his
aim or faltered in his effort; who, with a courage that seemed, and
still seems, fatuous, but which may well be called heroic, stood up
against the might of the greatest empire in the world. And, it may
be, pathetic, too, as one whose limitations were great, one whose
training and associations--whose very successes--had narrowed, and
embittered and hardened him; as one who, when the greatness of
success was his to take and to hold, turned his back on the supreme
opportunity, and used his strength and qualities to fight against the
spirit of progress, and all that the enlightenment of the age
pronounces to be fitting and necessary to good government and a
healthy State.