is our Afrikander character. The
descendants of Hollanders, Germans and Frenchmen
inter-married, and are only known at present by their
surnames. They form the Afrikander nationality, and call
themselves Afrikanders. The Afrikanders are no more
Hollanders than Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Germans. They have
their own language, own morals and customs; they are just as
much a nation as any other."--_De Patriot_, in the course of
an article headed "A Common but Dangerous Error"--the error
in question being the assertion that "the Cape Colony is an
English colony" (translated and reproduced in _The Cape
Times_, September 3th, 1884).]

In the face of the colossal resistance offered to the British arms by
the Boers and their colonial kinsmen in the South African War, it may
seem unnecessary to produce any evidence in support of the contention
that the military strength then displayed by the Dutch in South Africa
was the result of long and careful preparation. But the same inability
to grasp the facts of the South African situation which kept the Army
Corps in England three months after it should have been sent to the
Cape, is still to be met with. This attitude of mind--whether it be a
consciousness of moral rectitude, or a mere insular disdain of looking
at things from any but a British point of view--is still to be
observed in the statements of those politicians who will even now deny
that any trace of a definite plan of action, or of a concerted
purpose, which could properly be described as a "conspiracy" against
British supremacy was to be found among the Dutch population of South
Africa as a whole, prior to the outbreak of the war. It is for the
benefit of such politicians in part, and still more with a view of
bringing the mind of the reader into something approaching a direct
contact with the actual working of the Afrikander mind, that I
transcribe a statement of the pure doctrine of the Bond, as it was
expounded by the German, Borckenhagen, and his followers in the Free
State. It will, however, be convenient to preface the quotation with a
word of explanation in respect both of the text and the personality of
Borckenhagen.

[Sidenote: Carl Borckenhagen.]

The passage, which is taken _verbatim_ from a work entitled, "The
Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed," is a collection of sentences
gathered from Dutch pamphlets