WHITE MAN'S AFRICA.* THIS is one of those books in
which the interest of the sub- ject and the easy fluency of the style cover many defects of construction. It is a series of magazine articles tossed together apparently at haphazard, and bound up in a cover. The consequent want of chronological sequence makes the reader's brain reel. We begin with the Jameson Raid, then pass to an interview with President Kreger and some in- teresting details of his early life—in the course of which he is spoken of as the " President," though he was not, of course, made President until after the Transvaal had regained its in- dependence—then we trace the history of the Portuguese in Africa, then there is a chapter devoted to President Steyn of the Free State, then back to the history of the Basutos, and finally still further back to Slaagter's Nek, and the causes which led to the Great Trek of the " thirties." Lastly we come back to modern times with a very interesting sketch of Natal, a "Colonial Paradise," and a concluding chapter on British and Boer government. Apart from its topsy-turvy construction, the book is a very welcome contribution to the dull and strongly biassed literature that has been produced by recent events in South Africa. It shows no trace of preconceived opinion or prejudice; its information, though necessarily scrappy and occasionally very slightly inaccurate, is always brightly and vividly presented, and the style is chatty and interesting.
Mr. Bigelow was feliz opportunilate. He appears to have landed at the Cape early in 1896, when the whole of South Africa was stirred by the memories of the Raid, and still apprehensive of its probable consequences. With the in- stinct of an able journalist, he seems to have made his way promptly to Pretoria, and was introduced to President Kruger, who "embraced me in his great bovine gaze, and wrapped me in clouds of tobacco." His first impression of the President suggested " a composite portrait made up of Abraham Lincoln and Oliver Cromwell, with a fragment of John Bright about the eyes." The biographical details that he was enabled by Dr. Leyda's kind offices to collect are of great interest, though they relate chiefly to President Kruger's extraordinary powers as a runner and rider ; there is one anecdote, however, that throws a new light on this very
Sphinx-like character :-
" He was a wild boy, was Kruger, according to his own con- fession. His friend told me that while engaged upon building the first church at Rustenburg young Kruger was so delighted at having laid the ridge-pole beam that he at once climbed to its highest point and there stood on his head, to the alarm and scandal of the whole community. But as his old friend explained, Kruger was not a wicked youth ; it was, to be sure, an impious thing to do over a church, but it was done in sheer exuberance of spirits."
The friend's explanation is almost as amusing as President Kruger's act. Mr. Bigelow finally sums Mr. Kruger up as "a magnificent anachronism," and much as be admires him personally, compares the Transvaal Government unfavour- ably in many passages with that of the Orange Free State, a little unmindful, we think, of the special difficulties of the
Transvaal owing to the enormous alien immigration caused by the discovery of the Rand goldfield and to such unexpected developments as the Jameson Raid. As to the lamentable effects of this fiasco, he is worth quoting in full :- "Before the Jameson raid, Boers and English jogged along well enough side by side ; intermarriage was frequent, and their jealousies were never so great but that they cheerfully united in opposition to a common enemy, whether that enemy was a Kaffir or a threat of foreign invasion. The railways were doing for the country a vast missionary work,—teaching the Boers to respect, if not to like, the civilisation of their neighbours. Had South Africa developed normally it is not too much for us to venture the statement that within ten years there would not have been a Boer in the Transvaal who did not speak English. To-day the imported Hollander manages all the difficult questions in the Transvaal ; and be does so not because he is liked, but because the Legislature of the Transvaal feels the need of a solicitor versed in the technicality of the law. We must now wait until the Boer has been made to feel that his interests are safe in the hands of his fellow-Africanders, be they English or Dutch. This is merely a matter of patience, tact, and time."
• White Man's Afries. By Pulteney Bigelow. Illustrated by R. Orton Wood- ville, sad from Photographs by the Author. London : harper &Brothers. [16s.]
Unfortunately, with Mr. Rhodes's political career just begin- ning, it is by no means certain that patience and tact will give time a free hand. But let us leave the future to itself and follow our lively traveller to Delagoa Bay. Everything done by the Portuguese, from their treatment of the natives to their personal habits, seems to have disgusted him, and only his sense of humour turned a vehement diatribe against the rottenness of the people and their Government into an amusing sketch of wantonly fatuous mismanagement, with a strong comic-opera flavour. Their shortcomings begin in the approach to Lorenzo Marquez by sea. "Sometimes there is a buoy, sometimes there is not, and when the navigator finds one it may be a mile out of its place I have come to the conclusion that the Portuguese find no satisfaction in pro- moting the commerce of others, and they do see at least some good in wrecks that occur at their door." The shores
of the river continue the tale. They are admirably adapted for wharves, and ships might unload their cargoes straight into railway-trucks. But, to please the Portuguese, " they have to unload in the stream ; lighters have to carry the cargoes ashore; then there is another unloading operation on to the land, and after this the commerce of the port has to be lifted on to the backs of blacks and carried a short distance to the railway." On shore the scene is so marvellous that we must give it in full :- " When I landed at the Government wharf, where the lighters are unloaded, I looked about me upon a scene that recalled Strasburg after the siege. Lorenzo Marquez appeared to have sustained either a bombardment or an earthquake. Fortunately, I had a friend with me capable of explaining that what I saw was the result neither of war nor of a Providential act of wrath. It was simply the Portuguese Government acting as a forwarding agent. First I saw masses of boxes containing tinned provisions from Chicago—they had been smashed open and were scattered about as by the effect of a well-directed shell. With them lay thousands of little rock-drills, made also in America—they were scattered all over the sand and seemed to have here no more value than banana peelings. No doubt some miners in Johannesburg were wondering what had become of their rock-drills. A step further I saw a barricade of sacks, some containing rice, some lime. The lime was on top of the rice, and I could easily imagine the pleasant taste that would result from this unholy alliance in this tropical temperature. Then I stumbled upon the complete outfit for a mine railway—little cars, little wheels, little rails, little iron sleepers, along with innumerable nuts and accurately fitted parts that had been carefully packed in Birmingham or Philadelphia. Here they lay all smashed as though they had been wrecked in a railway collision ;" &e.
On a later page, in describing the beauties and good adminis- tration of Natal, Mr. Bigelow compares Durban with Delagoa Bay, and states that "no contrast could be more striking as illustrating the relative capacity of Portuguese and English." The only blot that our chronicler could find in Natal was the presence of the East Indian immigrants, who " appeared to do for this country what the Jews of Hungary and Poland do for those two generous and unsuspecting nations If they have not already, they will soon have the blacks of Natal in a bondage similar to that in which the Jews to-day hold the improvident emancipated slaves of the United States." The work of Germany in Africa as it appears to this independent observer is slimmed us thus :—
" In Africa, alone Germany has nearly a million square miles of colonial possession For thirteen years she has ex- pended vast sums for the purpose of giving the black people of these territories the same minute and paternal administration that she dispenses in Brandenburg and Pomerania. Costly buildings have been erected, in which extensive offices have been provided, and patient clerks on very small salaries are kept busy tabulating from day to day the results obtained. German exports to these African colonies are considerable, but they are mainly in the nature of ammunition, beer, and other articles of prime im- portance to German officials. An army of highly trained scribes is maintained in Berlin for the purpose of directing the colonial administration, and a complaisant Parliament votes from year to year enough money to make up the chronic deficit ; yet to-day in all German Africa there are not a thousand white colonists."
We could cover many pages with interesting extracts from this lively narrative, but must conclude by advising our readers to explore its pages themselves.
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