is intense. Some years later a large body of Germans were brought to
the Kingwilliams town division of South Africa. They, too, became
farmers, and their descendants are already true South Africans. For
the rest, for years men continually dribbled in slowly and singly
from other countries. Whether they came out in search of health, as
clergymen, missionaries, or doctors, or in search of manual employment,
or as farmers, they almost all became, or tended to become almost
immediately, South Africans. They settled in the land permanently among
people who were permanent inhabitants, they often married women born in
South Africa, and their roots soon sank deeply into it. They brought
us no new problem to South Africa. They have settled among us, living
as we live, sharing our lives and interests. It is said that it takes
thirty years to make a South African, and in a manner this is true.
Even now, more especially in times of stress or danger, it is easy to
distinguish the African-born man from the man of whatever race and
however long in the country who has not been born here. But in the main
these newcomers have become South Africans with quickness and to an
astonishing degree, and coming in in driblets they were, so to speak,
easily digested by South Africa.