These are straws, but one could multiply them
with incidents from every farm we go to. Their talk is invariably, and
without so far a single exception, to the same effect--"We will never
give in, and God sooner or later will see us through."
And then I see a speech of Buller's explaining that the war is being
carried on by a few mercenaries and coerced men, and that it is in no
sense a patriotic war. He is emphatic on this point and his audience
cheer him. One realises the difficulty of getting you to understand. The
breaking up of the big commandoes and the change to guerilla tactics, in
which every man fights on his own account, shows in a way there is no
mistaking that it is the personal wish of each man to fight out the
quarrel to the last. It is just because they are so individually keen
that this sort of warfare of theirs is so hard to cope with. These men
are uncoerced. Spontaneously and one by one they turn out to fight us as
soon as we show ourselves in their neighbourhood, and all the suffering
we can inflict only serves to harden their resolution.
Yet we certainly inflict a great deal. Boer families usually average up
to a dozen. They stick together, and grow up on their farms, which are
of enormous extent, and which they get to love with the instinctive
force of people who have never seen any other place. Love of family and
love of home are their two ruling affections.
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