But yet, in spite of
all they have to suffer, their determination remains just the same.
Anything like loud lamentations or complaints are almost unheard. They
rise to the occasion, and though naturally a very simple people, who
express openly what they feel, they act now in this crisis with a
constant composure which I have often thought most remarkable.
What supports them and keeps them going is just that spirit of
patriotism which Buller denies the existence of. A patriot is a man who
puts his country first thing of all. The final result of it all, "the
uselessness of prolonging the struggle," and such newspaper talk as
that, is not for him. There fronts him one fact, his country is invaded;
and there fronts him one duty, to fight till he dies for it. This would
have been a Greek's definition of the word, and it is the Boer farmer's
definition. It is of course just because patriots never do count the
cost, and are what the newspapers call "deaf to reason," that they
sometimes bring off such astonishing results.
The Boers have now to watch a slow, implacable, methodical devastation
of their country, tract by tract. Day by day they fight, and one by one
they fall. Comrades and friends drop at each other's sides; sons drop by
fathers, and brothers by brothers. The smoke rises in the valley, and
the home is blotted out. All that makes life worth living goes, then
life itself.
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