"1. _Had Steyn sat still and minded his own business_ no one would have
meddled with him. Had Kruger confined himself strictly to self-defence,
and _we_ had invaded _him_, we might have had to blame ourselves.
"2. To have placed an adequate defensive force on our borders before we
were sure that there was going to be war would have been accepted
(perhaps justly) by the Boers as a menace. We did not do it, out of
respect for their susceptibilities.
"3. To most people in South Africa who knew the Boers it was quite plain
that Kruger was all along playing what is colloquially known as the game
of 'spoof.' He never intended to make the slightest concession.
"4. Take them as a whole, the Boers are not pleasant people to live
with, especially to those who are within their power, as the natives
have found out sufficiently, and as the British have found out ever
since Majuba, and the retrocession of the Transvaal. The wrongs of the
Uitlanders were only one symptom of a disease which originated at
Pretoria in 1881, and was steadily spreading itself all over South
Africa.
"5. With regard to the equal rights question, it is quite true that all
is not as it ought to be in the Cape Colony. But the condition of the
native in the Transvaal is 100 years behind that of our natives in the
Cape Colony, and you may take it as a broad fact that in proportion as
Boer domination prevails the gravitation of the native towards slavery
will be accelerated."
In conclusion, Mr. Moffat has this to say of the "Boer dream of
Afrikander predominance": "We, who have been living out here, have been
hearing about this thing for years, but we have tried not to believe it.
We felt, many of us, that the struggle had to come, but we held our
peace because we did not want to be charged with fomenting race hatred."
He refers to Ben Viljoen's manifesto of September 29th, and to President
Steyn's manifesto, and State Secretary Reitz's proclamation of October
11th, and says, "When I read these in conjunction with the history of
South Africa for the last 18 years, I see that the cause of peace was
hopeless in such hands."
* * * * *
Almost contemporaneously with the expression of opinion of Dr. Moffat
(in 1877), the following report was written by M. Dieterlen, to the
Committee of the _Missions Evangéliques de Paris_:--
"Lessouto, June 28th, 1876.
"Gentlemen,
"I must give you details of the journey which I have just made with four
native evangelists; for no doubt you will wish to know why a missionary
expedition, begun under the happiest auspices, and with the good wishes
of so many Christians, has come to grief, on account of the ill-will of
certain men, and has been, from a human point of view, a humiliating
failure. Having placed myself at the head of the expedition, and being
the only white man in the missionary group, I must bear the whole
responsibility of our return, and if there is anyone to blame it is I.
"From our departure from Leriba, as far as the other side of Pretoria,
our voyage was most agreeable. We went on with energy, thinking only of
our destination, the Banyaïs country, making plans for our settling
amongst those people, and full of happiness at the thought of our new
enterprise. An excellent spirit prevailed in our little troop,--serious
and gay at the same time; no regrets, no murmurings; with a
presentiment, indeed, that the Transvaal Government might make some
objection to our advance, but with the certainty that God was with us,
and would over-rule all that man might try to do. We crossed the Orange
Free State without hindrance, we passed the Vaal, and continued our
route towards the capital of the Transvaal; we reached the first
village through which we must pass--Heidelberg--and encamped some
distance from there. There they told us that the Boers knew that we were
about to pass, and if they wished to stop us, it would be there they
would do it. Let us take courage, therefore, we said, and be ready for
everything. We unharnessed, and walked through the village in full
daylight, posting our letters, etc. No one stopped us or spoke to us,
and we retired to our encampment, thanking God that He had kept us
through this critical moment. Some days later, we approached a charming
spot, within three hours of Pretoria, near a clear stream, surrounded
with lovely trees and flowers; we took the Communion together,
strengthening each other for the future. Monday, at nine o'clock, we
reached Pretoria. We were looked at with curiosity; they read our names
on the sides of my waggon, they seemed surprised, and held discussions
among themselves; the Field Cornet himself saw us pass, they told me
sometime later. But we passed through the town without opposition.
"We continued our way to the north-east full of thankfulness, saying to
each other that after all the Government of the Transvaal was not so
ill-disposed towards us. Our oxen continued to walk with sturdy steps;
we had not yet lost one, although the cattle plague was prevalent at the
time. Wednesday, at four o'clock in the evening, we left the house of an
English merchant, with whom we had passed a little time, and who had
placed at our disposal everything which we needed. Towards eight
o'clock, by a splendid moonlight, I was walking in front of my waggon
with Asser (one of the native missionaries), seeking a suitable place
where we could pass the night, when two horsemen galloped up, and
drawing bridle, brusquely asked for my papers, and seeing that I had not
the papers that they desired, ordered us to turn round and go back to
Pretoria. One of these men was the Sheriff, who showed me a warrant for
my arrest, and putting his hand on my shoulder, declared me to be his
prisoner. This, I may say in passing, made little impression on me. We
retraced our steps, always believing that when we had paid some duty
exacted for our luggage and our goods, we should be allowed to go in
peace. Towards midnight they permitted us to unharness near a farm. The
next morning these gentlemen searched all through the waggon of the
native evangelists, and put any objects which they suspected aside. All
this, with my waggon, must be sent back to Pretoria, there to be
inspected by anyone who chose.
"That same day I arrived in Pretoria in a cart, seated between the Field
Cornet and the Sheriff, who were much softened when they saw that I did
not reply to them in the tone which they themselves adopted, and that I
had not much the look of a smuggler. The Secretary of the Executive
Council exacted from me bail to the amount of £300 sterling, for which a
German missionary from Berlin, Mr. Grüneberger, had the goodness to be
my guarantor. I made a deposition, saying who we were, whence we came,
and where we were going, insisting that we had no merchandise in our
waggon, only little objects of exchange by which we could procure food
in countries where money has no value. We had no intention of
establishing ourselves within the limits of the Transvaal; we were going
beyond the Limpopo, and consequently were simple travellers, and were
not legally required to take any steps in regard to the Government, nor
even to ask a passport. All this was written down and addressed to the
Executive Committee, who took the matter in hand.
"As they, however, accused us of being smugglers, and having somewhere
a cannon, they proceeded to the examination of my waggon. They opened
everything, ran their hands in everywhere, into biscuit boxes, among
clothes, among candles, etc., and found neither cannon nor petroleum.
The comedy of the smuggling ended, they took note of the contents of my
boxes, and then attacked us from another side. They decided to treat me
as a missionary. The Solicitor-General said to me that the Government
did not care to have French missionaries going to the other side of the
Limpopo. I said, 'these countries do not belong to the Transvaal;' to
which they replied, 'Do you know what our intentions are? Have you not
heard of the treaties which we have been able to make with the natives
and with the Portuguese?' There! that is the reply which they made to
me. They took good care not to inscribe it in the document in which they
ordered us to leave the Transvaal immediately. These are things which
they do not care to write, lest they should awaken the just
susceptibilities of other Governments, or arouse the indignation of all
true Christians. But there is the secret of the policy of the Transvaal
in regard to us missionaries; they feared us, because they know our
attachment to the natives, and our devotion to their interests.
"They then ordered me to retrace at once my steps, threatening
confiscation of our goods and the imprisonment of our persons if we
attempted to force a passage through the country. I had to pay £14
sterling for the expenses of this mock trial. They brought the four
native Evangelists out of the prison where they had spent two nights and
a day in a very unpleasant manner; they gave me leave to take our two
waggons out of the square of the Hotel de Ville where they had been put,
together with the Transvaal Artillery, some pieces of ordnance, a large
Prussian cannon and a French mitrailleuse from Berlin.
"We were free, we were again united, but what a sorrowful reunion! We
could hardly believe that all was ended, and that we must retrace our
steps; so many hopes dissipated in a moment! and the thought of having
to turn back after having arrived so near to our destination, was heart
breaking. We were all rather sad, asking each other if we were merely
the sport of a bad dream or if this was indeed the will of God. T
resolved to make one more effort and ask an interview with the President
of the Transvaal, Mr. Burgers. It was granted to me. I went therefore to
the Cabinet of the President and spoke a long time with the
Solicitor-General, protesting energetically against the force they had
used against us, and I discussed the matter also with the President
himself, but without being able to obtain any reasonable reply to the
objections I raised. I saw clearly that I had to do with men determined
to have their own way, and putting what they chose to consider the
interests of the State above those of all Divine and human laws.
"Their Parliament (Raad) was sitting, and I addressed myself to two of
its members whom I had seen the day before, and who had seemed annoyed
at the conduct of the Government towards us. I besought them for the
honour of their country, to bring before their Parliament a question on
the subject; but they dared not consent to this, declaring that if the
Government were to put the matter before the representatives of the
country these latter would decide in our favour, but that they could
never take the initiative.
"I had now exhausted all the means at my disposal. I did all I could to
obtain leave to continue our journey, and only capitulated at the last
extremity. I received a written order from the Government telling me to
leave the soil of the Republic immediately.
"These gentlemen had made me wait a long time, perhaps because they
found it more difficult and dangerous to put down on paper orders which
it was much easier to give vocally. This note was only a reproduction of
the accusations they had made against us from the beginning. They
declared to us that we were driven from the country because we had
introduced guns, ammunition, and a great quantity of merchandise, and
because we had entered the Transvaal without a passport, in spite of the
Government itself having recently proclaimed a passport unnecessary for
evangelists going through the country. In this document they
systematically misrepresented and violated the right which every white
man had had until then of travelling without permission. From the
beginning to the end of this document it was open to criticism, which
the feeblest jurist could have made; but in the Transvaal, as elsewhere,
might dominates right, and we have to suffer the consequences of this
odious principle.
"We sorrowfully retraced the route towards the Vaal; this time no more
joyous singing around our fire at night, no more cheerful projects, no
more the hope of being the first to announce the glad Evangel among
pagan populations. The veldt we traversed seemed to have lost its poetry
and to have become desolate. To add to our misfortunes the epidemic
seized our oxen. We lost first one and then a second,--altogether eight.
Those which were left, tired and lean, dragged slowly and with pain the
waggons which before they had drawn along with such vigour. At last we
were in sight of Mabolela, and arrived at our destination, sorrowful,
yet not unhappy, determined not to be discouraged by this first check.
And now we were again at Lessouto, waiting for God to open to us a new
door."