For, let us consider what exactly our position is.
Born in South Africa, our eyes first opened on these African hills and
plains; around us, of other parentage but born with us in the land, our
birth-fellows, were men of another white race; and we grew up side by
side with them. Is it strange that, like all men living, who have the
hearts of men, we learnt to love this land in which we first saw light?
In after years, when we left it, and lived months or years across the
seas, is it strange we carried it with us in our hearts? When we stood
on the Alps and looked down on the lakes and forests of Switzerland,
that we have said, “This is fair, but South Africa to us is fairer?”
That when on the top of Milan Cathedral and we have looked out across
the wide plains of Lombardy, we have said, “This is noble; but
nobler to us are the broad plains of Africa, with their brown kopjes
shimmering in the translucent sunshine?” Is it strange that when, after
long years of absence, years it may be of success and the joy which
springs from human fellowship and youth, our ship has cast its anchor
in sight of Table Bay, and the great front of Table Mountain has
reared up before us, a cry of passionate joy has welled up within us;
and when we saw the black men with their shining skins unloading in the
docks, and the rugged faces of South Africans, browned with our African
sun, we put our foot on the dear old earth again, and our hearts have
cried: “We are South Africans! We have come back again to our land and
to our people?” Is it strange that when we are in other lands and we
fear that death approaches us, we say: “Take me back! We may live away
from her, but when we are dead we must lie on her breast. Bury us among
the kopjes where we played when we were children, and let the iron
stones and red sand cover us?” Is it strange that wherever we live we
all want to go home to die; and that the time comes when we know that
dearer far to us than fame or success is one little handful of our own
red South African earth? Is it strange that, when the