Then, finally, put a finer temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism.

Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer--the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain.

Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.
Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of the British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great stretch of the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a people.

How came they there?
Who are these Teutonic folk who have burrowed so deeply into Africa?
It is a twice-told tale, and yet it must be told once again if this story is to have even the most superficial of introductions.

No one can know or appreciate the Boer who does not know his past, for he is what his past has made him.
It was about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith--in 1652, to be pedantically accurate--that the Dutch made their first lodgment at the Cape of Good Hope.