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THE RUSH TO KIMBERLEY
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which
the supported assertion of control of the Diamond Fields would have
involved. The founders of these states had sought only the plain homes
of farmers and shepherds on the veld, under a government of their own
choosing. Neither they nor their children were greatly stirred by the
uncovering of diamonds, or the prospect of finding more on their
lands. They disliked the spreading rush to the Diamond Fields, even
when it was presumed that their own mines were developing. The plain,
stolid farming folk, stiffly set in their old-fashioned ways, had
little in common with the sanguine adventurers, delighting in stirs and
surprises and novelties. Baines tells a story of the mobbing of the
first surveyor who tried to use a theodolite in the streets of
Potchefstrom, instead of stepping off" the distance in the good old way
of the " veld-vlak-meester." He avers, too, that he was himself made "
vogel vrie," " free as a bird for anybody to shoot at," for the crime
of concealing a sextant about his person.1 This may be a
fanciful stretch of fact, but there is no doubt of the ingrained
conservatism of the Boers. How could such a people sympathize with the
impetuous and ardent spirits that rushed to the Diamond Fields, and
what prospect was there of the docile submission of the one to the
other ! It can scarcely be questioned, therefore, by a candid observer
that the conclusion of Lieutenant Governor Keate was the best practical
settlement, if not the most impartial and accurate.
It
was not to be expected, however, that this significant departure from
the halting policy of former ministries, this forward step of Greater
Britain into the heart of a region hitherto indifFerentlv resigned to
the migrating Boers, should be viewed with resignation by the
embittered Republics whose claims were disallowed. Resentment ran so
high in the Transvaal that President Pretorius was forced to resign.
His place was filled by a clergyman, Thomas Francois Burgers, and,
after the short sharp war for independence in 1880-81, by Stephen J.
Paul Kruger, a marcher with the Great Trek from the Cape to the
Limpopo, a lion killer from boyhood as dauntless as David,
1 " The Gold Regions of Southeastern Africa," Thomas Baines.
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