Karel Stuurmann died, and was buried them are miserably poor; their flocks near a fountain on the wild Karroo, and are reduced and deteriorated from his sons and daughters became Trek- disease and in-and-in breeding; their Boers, or the wives of Trek-Boers, wagons are battered and dilapidated; after him. For many a year all went they themselves look degraded and well; the game was still there to pur- sunken and miserable. Some of them sue; the land was lonely, yet pleasant; burn ashes from certain of the karroo and the verdoemed uitlander1 was as yet bushes, and sell them to the settled unknown. But presently came the farmers to make soap with. Some colBritish, and after them percussion-lect salt from the pans, and with a guns, and later the deadly breech- few springbok skins earn a trifle to loader. The game began to vanish, eke out their wretchedness. Some the country became more settled, and, few, like the Stuurmanns, still have except for the remote wildernesses of decent wagons and fair flocks. But the north-west, the Cape Colony was in the Cape Colony they are a declining no longer the Trek-Boers' paradise. race, and twenty or thirty years more Slavery was abolished, and even the will see the last of them. Yet even native servants, the Hottentots and the poorest of them still retain their Kaffirs― nay, even the captive Bush- pure European blood, still lord it over boys, mere baboons the Boers called their miserable native servants, and at them, torn young from their slaugh- times-perhaps thrice in the year tered parents could no longer be still trek to the nearest village for treated quite as of yore. Many of Nachtmaal (communion). And still these Trek-Boers joined the emigrant the great Bible, more often than not farmers, and passed beyond the Orange and the Vaal rivers. Some of them helped to found the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics; some of them still pursued the old wandering life, and as elephant-hunters dared the unknown wilds and the dangers of the remote regions towards the Zambesi. But still a leaven of them clung to the old Cape Colony. The life became ever more sombre and less alluring. The great game had gone; only the springboks and smaller antelopes remained to remind them of the teeming plenty of the brave days of smoothbores and flint-locks. These TrekBoers of the colony sank lower in the social scale; they had to depend only I have hinted at the darker aspect of on their scant flocks and herds; their the latter-day life of the Trek-Boers of more settled and richer neighbors Cape Colony. Let us glance at the learned to look upon them with dislike | more pleasant part of it. and even hate, for the reason that they often, by means of their flocks and herds, carried disease-scab and lungsickness and red-water from one farm to another. And so in these latter days the Trek-Boer of the Cape Colony is looked upon as little better than the gipsy of Europe. Many of 1 Accursed foreigner. two hundred years old, is carried in the wagon-chest and cherished. For these Trek-Boers of Cape Colony, the unpeopled solitudes of Bushmanland - that is, the northern portion of the divisions of Little Namaqualand, Calvinia, Fraserburg, and Carnarvon - bordering on the Orange River, are still a last stronghold. Here after the rains they can range freely with their flocks and pursue the trekking springboks and live the old wild life. Elsewhere, if they halt for the night on the farm of another, they must pay for the privilege, and a goat or sheep or two have to be handed over in exchange for pasture and right of water. Their coffee finished, Klaas Stuurmann moves to the temporary kraals, a hundred yards away, where his flocks are confined for the night. There are two kraals-one for the sheep, one for goats-and they are simply made of bush and branches of the acacia and wait-a-bit thorns, fashioned into a light ring-fencing, just sufficient to keep the flocks within and prowling hyenas and jackals without. Already the native pocket, and relighting it, the big Boer herd-boys are there waiting for their moves massively back to his wagon, charges; and the hungry kraal-deni- near which his daughter is busily enzens, knowing their breakfast-hour is gaged in a wash at the welcome vlei. nigh, bleat loudly for the near freedom There are three other wagons outof the veldt. The tall Dutchman now spanned by the pool; oue of them plants himself by the entrance of the belongs to the Boer's two sons; one sheep-kraal, from which a herdsman of them is inhabited by yet another drags away the thorns. Forth flock Trek-Boer, whose vrouw is engaged in the impatient sheep, and as their the same task of washing, and whose stream issues through the narrow exit, children- five of them—young, merry Klaas Stuurmann numbers them head rascals, are playing in the strong sunby head. As a rule the Boer is a bad light upon the edge of the water. hand at figures; but in the necessary ancient custom of counting flocks night the sweet, warm air, and recall, even and morning, he can reckon with as to Klaas Stuurmann's unimpressive much skill as any man. Practice mind, the younger days of his own makes perfect, and so Klaas Stuur- children and his now dead wife. The mann finds no difficulty in taking his fleecy census fast as the sheep pass forth. The sheep-six hundred head of them - are checked and found in order, and the same process is gone through at the other kraal, whence, to the number of eight hundred, the goats go forth in the ancient African fashion of five thousand years to pasture in the wild. The warm air, full of the rich aromatic scent of the veldt vegetation, now springing in its prime, comes alluringly into the nostrils of these nomadic flocks, and soon they are scattered upon the plain feeding vigorously, their silent, patient herd-boys tending them for the hot livelong day. Their voices sound pleasantly upon recollection brings an unwonted ten- The oxen are feeding quietly round the vlei; the Boer's eye follows them with contentment, for water and the rich veldt have brought fat and sleekWhat do these dusky herd-boys think ness to their great frames. His daughof, day after day, as they follow their ter's toilet catches his eye, and he flocks? Heaven knows! As well ask watches the girl with an air of grave the bird and beast of the great plains and secret pleasure, for she is the last what are their thoughts! Sometimes survivor of three girl children, and by in the days of the Pharaohs there no means an ill-looking maiden in a sprang a great warrior or statesman Dutchman's eye. Cobus, the Hottenfrom the brown-skinned herdsmen and hunters of the far Land of Cush; nay, Egypt herself was ruled not seldom during those remote ages by almost pure Ethiopian blood. But nowadays there be no black Hampdens, or yellow Miltons, still less, possible Pharaohs, from among the lazy Kaffirs and poor besotted Hottentots of the Cape Col ony. Refilling his pipe from colonial tobacco, carried loose in his jacket tot, has brought an iron bucket from the wagon, and at the margin of the vlei he fills it with water for the meisje, who already has soap, a towel, and a comb. Taking off her sun-bonnet, she washes her face and hands, then, unfettering her stout plait of fair brown hair, she leans forward, and using the calm surface of the water as a mirror, combs out the somewhat tangled locks. 1 A large teacup, devoid of handle, used by Boers. sleep, sitting on the sand with his back against the wagon-wheel-a moving picture of pastoral listlessness, or, if you please, pastoral sloth. The hot day wears on. At three o'clock Anna mounts to the wagon-box, and, shading her eyes from the intense glare, scans the hot plain, now dancing and shimmering with mirage. The flocks have turned for home-she can hear the far-off tinkle of their bells, borne drowsily upon the warm air; but it is not the flocks she searches for. In another half hour she looks forth again. This time, far in the north, she picks out from the shimmer and tremble of the atmosphere a tiny cloud of dust. That is what she is expecting, and she now gives orders to the Hottentot and another boy to tend the fire, get the pot and pan in order, and fill the great kettle. Again the brown hair is coiled into a heat and the effects of his meal, falls to neat plait, drawn tightly from her temples, and her toilet is complete. As she ties on her sun-bonnet again the Boer comes up, pats her broad back, and looks admiringly at the now refreshened face. Two hundred years of South Africa have little altered the old Batavian type. The eyes are blue, but of small brilliancy, the cheeks too broad and flat for English taste, and the young figure is already stiff, waistless, and heavy. Yet in this far-off backcountry women folk are scarce, and in much request, and already, at eighteen, Anna Stuurmann has found a mate. Next to her brothers' wagon there stands the wagon of her betrothed Cornelis Klopper who is just now away in the grass plains a little to the north, shooting springboks with the younger Stuurmanns. This wagon is newly repaired, smart, and gaily painted, and is destined in another In a while you may catch the steady month or two, after the flocks have trample of galloping hoofs, and presbeen well recruited in the Bushman-ently three Boers-the girl's brothers land Trek-veldt, to become the home and her betrothed—each guiding a led of the Boer maiden. The combined horse, canter up to the wagons. Folfamilies are to trek to Calvinia village, where the marriage will take place, and thenceforth Anna becomes mistress of her own man and wagon. His daughter's modest toilet complete, the big Boer dips a corner of the not over-clean towel in water, runs it carelessly over brow, cheeks, eyes, and mouth, dips his hands, and the trick is done. The proximity of cleanliness to godliness is no axiom of the Cape Dutch farmer, still less of the roaming Trek-Boer. A dry, parched land, and lack of water, have doubtless had a good deal to do with this trait. At eleven o'clock, sitting in the shade of the sail suspended between two wagons, father and daughter partake, after a long grace, of the usual meal-pieces of mutton, swimming in sheep's-tail fat, boiled rice, coarse bread, and the eternal coffee, which, however, is just now, thanks to the sweet herbage, plenteously tempered by a supply of bokke melk (goat's milk). Again the big Dutchman lights his pipe, and presently, yielding to the lowing at their heels is a Hottentot after-rider, also with a spare horse heavy laden. The men are hot, dusty, and sweat-stained. Ever since yesterday morning they have been away in the grass veldt, following a trek of springboks, and their display of venison and jaded nags prove that they have hunted hard, successfully, and far. Seventy miles have they ridden; a dozen springbok have they brought in; and, greatest luck of all, the flesh, skins, and horns of a great cow gemsbok decorate the led horse of Cornelis Klopper. The gemsbok (Oryx capensis), one of the noblest of antelopes, is rare indeed in Cape Colony nowadays, even upon the verge of the Orange River, and Anna's betrothed is proportionately elate. The gemsbok is protected, too, under heavy penalties in the Cape Colony; but what boots this to the wandering Trek-Boer in these wild solitudes, where the echo of laws can scarce be heard, and gamekeepers are not? At five o'clock the party are gathered beneath the wagon-sail, feasting asleep. Her father snores loudly from the forepart of the wagon; the whole camp (including the native "boys" huddled beneath the wagons) is hushed; while all around broods the wonderful silence of night on the plains of Bushmanland. merrily, and with some noise and ket and sheepskin kaross well over her laughter, on tit-bits of venison; the sturdy frame, and is almost instantly rest of the meat meanwhile being salted, to be dried for bültong on the morrow. As they sit at meat, the hunting scenes are re-enacted for the benefit of Anna and her father, and, in particular, Cornelis's desperate chase of the gemsbok. Meanwhile, as the sun nears the horizon after his day's tramp, the flocks, bringing with them a cloud of red dust, come in for the night. First, they drink deeply and long at the vlei, which now reflects upon its glassy surface the ruddy glories of the sunset. Then the tired creatures are kraaled, their masters rising to count them as they file in. H. A. BRYDEN. From The Contemporary Review. THE LETTERS OF COLERIDGE.1 BY ANDREW LANG. "To the same enthusiastic sensibilities which made a fool of Nelson with regard to his Emma, his country owed the victories of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar.” Thus Coleridge wrote in 1814, and in reading his newly published letters one is often reminded of his remark on the great sailor. "Enthusiastic sensibilities "these, too, were Coleridge's own familiar moods. If one wearies of enthusiasm, if those tears of sensibility which he is forever shedding seem rather maudlin, yet we owe to his excitements the poems of "The Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," and "Kubla Khan." To be sure Tom Jones weeps quite as much, and we think Tom no puler. The Boer and his sons now move their squat wagon-chairs nearer to the warm blaze of the camp-fire; they smoke vigorously, and occasionally cast stolidly a sentence at one another. Anna and her heavy lover stroll a little beyond the firelight by the edge of the vlei; their voices intermingle curiously with the clang of water-fowl - duck, Like Nelson's letters to Lady Hamilgeese, widgeon, and teal-from the ton, Coleridge's letters, to everybody other end of the pool. Theirs is the almost, are not always agreeable readold, old story, told perhaps in a rougher ing. One lesson of Mr. Carlyle's, a and less romantic fashion than in Eu- lesson which he preached by precept rope; yet is its refrain as earnest and rather than example, we have partly its aftermath at least as kindly as in learned. "Consume your own smoke," northern lands. The South African said the sage. Coleridge, in his private Boer makes a true and constant hus- correspondence, blew abroad the vapor band, and a good father - some people say he is a trifle too uxorious. At eight o'clock the day is done. The party separates for the night, after a longish melancholic prayer and a chapter of the great Bible from Stuurmanu. Anna goes to her kartel-bed at the end of the big wagon, lets down the achterklap, takes off her shoes and sun-bonnet, loosens a button or two at the throat of her gown, pulls her blan of smoke which rose from, and often dimmed, the fire of his unexampled genius. On that sacred flame it is no metaphor to say that he poured too many drugs, heaped "poppy buds and labdanum." Hence ascended the smoke which he did not restrain or consume, but allowed to take its free way through heaven and earth. It 1 Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. Heinemann: London, 1895. may be said that there is an affectation, tions, Sir Walter passes to a vernow, of reticence, and an affectation of dict on Coleridge, "a man of genius, manliness. Affectations if they be, struggling with bad habits and diffithese at least are imitations of virtues cult circumstances." In half-a-dozen which Coleridge did not possess. He words, here is all that we can say of had a kind of mania for confessing Coleridge's unhappiness. The "strughimself, and crying mea culpa. Like gles," often foiled, the repentance, the bad man in Aristotle, he is "full often too fluent and facile, are as real of repentance," or of remorse. He is as the genius. "No man," says Scott an erring creature, and knows it, and elsewhere," has all the resources of his confessions occasionally suggest, in poetry in such profusion, but he cana sense, the Scotch proverbial policy of not manage them so as to bring out "taking the first word of flyting." anything of his own on a large scale at One would rather see him more hard- all worthy of his genius. He is like a ened, less "sensible." To moralize lump of coal rich with gas, which lies about Coleridge is temptingly easy and expending itself in puffs and gleams, absolutely useless. unless some shrewd body will clap it in a cast-iron box, and compel the compressed element to do itself justice. His fancy and diction would have long ago placed him above all his contemporaries, had they been under the direction of a sound judgment and a steady will." Once more, Scott styles Coleridge "our own imaginative poet," and what can we add? To Coleridge more was given by his genius than to any of the rest. To myself, the new volumes of his letters, painful in many ways, are most painful because to moralize over them is so futile. As we read, we are tempted to doubt the freedom of the will. So fluent and so flabby, at what point had Coleridge a chance to pull up to be stronger and more silent? He seems to be the victim of a destiny inherent in his constitution, and imposed on him from his infancy. Yet he did make efforts, finally he made the most difficult effort, perhaps, of all, to be strong in the strength of others. He had joys as well as sorrows, in which we common men are not partakers. He had depth, tenderness, and constancy of affection; he could love, and, beyond the usual course of nature, could make himself beloved. He had a large and generous faculty of admiration in presence of what was admirable. Again, as Scott says in his admirable letter to Maturin, "Coleridge has some room to be spited at the world." Coleridge had assailed a work of Maturin's, who was as angry and voluble as Coleridge himself was when Hazlitt (as he believed) had attacked "Christabel" in the Edinburgh Review. Not having Sir Walter to advise him, Coleridge retorted by an assault on Jeffrey. "A man," says Sir Walter, "will certainly be vexed on such occasions, and I have wished to have the knaves where the muircock was the bailie;" but reply to "the knaves," never! From these natural reflec He on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. Both in voice and in vision he is unrivalled. But he had not moral balance, he had not moral control, or at least he too often lacked them, as his letters inform us or remind us. We study them, rather vainly trying to discover how much of his strength came from, or was indissolubly associated with, his weakness, how far his gift was the inevitable complement of his nocturnal agonies, of the too vivid and too terrible emergence of pictures and of ideas from the submerged self which (in genius) rather controls men than is by men controlled. I have consulted and quoted Scott for the purpose of bridling the impatience wherewith too much of Coleridge's correspondence affects myself, and probably affects many readers. The letters are not all new and unpublished; indeed those already familiar we require to elucidate those which we peruse for the first time. Mr. Ernest |