om the times when each race could maintain itself only by slaughtering
its rivals.

The attitude of contempt I have mentioned may be noted in all classes,
though it is strongest in those rough and thoughtless whites who plume
themselves all the more upon their colour because they have little else
to plume themselves upon, while among the more refined it is restrained
by self-respect and by the sense that allowances must be made for a
backward race. It is stronger among the Dutch than among the English,
partly, perhaps, because the English wish to be unlike the Dutch in this
as in many other respects. Yet one often hears that the Dutch get on
better with their black servants than the English do, because they
understand native character better, and are more familiar in their
manners, the Englishman retaining his national stiffness. The laws of
the Boer Republics are far more harsh than those of the English
Colonies, and the Transvaal Boers have been always severe and cruel in
their dealings with the natives. But the English also have done so many
things to be deplored that it does not lie with them to cast stones at
the Boers, and the mildness of colonial law is largely due to the
influence of the home government, and to that recognition of the equal
civil rights of all subjects which has long pervaded the common law of
England. Only two sets of Europeans are free from reproach: the imperial
officials, who have almost always sought to protect the natives, and the
clergy, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, who have been the truest and
most constant friends of the Hottentot and the Kafir, sometimes even
carrying their zeal beyond what discretion could approve.

Deep and wide-spread as is the sentiment of aversion to the coloured
people which I am describing, it must not be supposed that the latter
are generally ill-treated. There is indeed a complete social separation.
Intermarriage, though permitted by law in the British Colonies, is
extremely rare, and illicit unions are uncommon. Sometimes the usual
relations of employer and employed are reversed, and a white man enters
the service of a prosperous Kafir. This makes no difference as respects
their social intercourse, and I remember to have heard of a case in
which the white workman stipulated that his employer should address him
as "boss." Black children are very seldom admitted to schools used by
white children; indeed, I doubt if the two colours are ever to be seen
on