mmunity is laid, none
too justly, the entire blame for such mistakes.

Then too, however mistakenly, I cannot but think the peculiar type of
piety cherished by the Boers is largely responsible for the moral
obliquity of which, justly or unjustly, I heard complaints continually
from those who professed to know them well. These sons of the
Huguenots and of the Dutch refugees who fled from the persecuting zeal
of Alva have all sprung from an exceptionally religious stock, and
with dogged conservatism still cling to the rigid traditions and
narrow beliefs of a bygone age. The country-bred Boer resembles not
remotely our own Puritans and Covenanters. He and his are God's Elect,
and the Elect of the Lord have ever seemed prone to take liberties
with the law of the Lord. They deem themselves a chosen race to whom a
new Canaan has been divinely given, and in defence of whom Jehovah
Himself is bound to fight. At the commencement of the campaign it was
common talk that "they had commandeered the Almighty." Their piety and
practice are largely modelled on Old Testament lines. They used God's
name and quoted Scripture _ad nauseam_ even in State correspondence.
Their President was also their High Priest; yet in business
transactions they were reputed to be as slim as Jacob in his dealings
with Laban; and a lack of loyalty to the exact truth, some of their
own clergy say, had become almost a national characteristic. "The
bond-slave of my mere word I will never be" has often been quoted as a
Boer proverb; and those that had lived long in the land assured me
that proverb and practice too commonly keep company.

It is a perilous thing for men or nations to deem themselves in any
exclusive sense Heaven's favourites. Such conceptions do not minister
to heavenly-mindedness, or beget lives of ethic beauty. The ancient
Hebrews, blinded by this very belief, became "worse than the
heathen," and herein lies a solemn warning alike for the beaten Boer
and the boastful Briton! There is no true religion where there is no
all round righteousness; and wheresoever that is wanting the wrath of
God cannot but abide.

[Sidenote: _A tight fit._]

Our next day's march ended just as a heavy thunderstorm with still
heavier rain broke upon us; so the Grenadier officers pitched their
mess as close as they could get to the sheltering wall of a decidedly
stenchful Kaffir cottage. There we stood in the drenching wet and ate
our evening meal, which was lunch