What do the Boers do with their guns ? They
never seem to surrender them even when defeated, and they cannot break them into little bits. Do they send them away before they surrender, or do they bury them in the sand of their rivers ? The plan of burial is the one adopted by the hostile races in India, and it is not so fatal to the guns as might be imagined. If we remember rightly, when the Sikhs rose in 1848 scores of guns which had disappeared suddenly saw the light. The symptom is not a pleasant one, because it means that the fighters who adopt it think themselves irreconcilable, but men make strange mistakes as to their own tempers. Many a man has vowed revenge on an employer for dismissal, but finding pleasanter work and becoming prosperous he learns to regard his vow as one of the follies of youth, and even grows puzzled to explain why he was so angry. The Boers are neither Celts nor Corsicans.
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