skirt and kapje and her resolute scowl. Had we but been able to sit beside her on her voorkist and been able to make clear to her our meaning, we would have said: "The new women from all the world over send you their greetings, Tante![63] In you and such as you we see our leaders, and we are following in your steps. For God's sake, Tante, hold fast your seat on the front-chest and your fuel and carry it to market in spite of all the fools. I see in you, Tante, something that harmonizes strangely with this great blue African sky above us and the little koppies to our right, and the great plain to our left, and the red sandy road in which your donkeys plough, and the thorn-trees here and there casting their shade. Like this wide plain, you wake in me an aspiration for freedom and independence which no woman in the town below us could awaken. For God's sake, Tante, never give up your wagon-whip for a mother-of-pearl card case, and your kappie for a straw hat with paper flowers, and, instead of digging up fuel in your kraal and cutting wood, take a croquet mallet for your weapon of toil! I see in you, Tante, the secret of many a brave fight that your race has fought for freedom, and many still to come. When you paste little black spots on your cheeks and pencil your eyebrows with black, and wear an eighteen-inch waist, and trip with high-heeled shoes with your head on one side, there will be no more Amajubas. Keep thy hard horned hands, Tante. The day will perhaps come when thy sons and daughters will grasp the artist's brush and the thinker's pen and the mechanician's tool in place of the spade and the axe and the driving-whip; but, till that time comes, labour on in thine own field. It is easier to pass from any one work to any other work than from parasitism to labour; and they will need work well, Tante, who will work more usefully, more bravely, than you. The working-women from all the world over, whether they toil with the head or the hand, indoor or out, send their greetings to you, Tante. You are not only the backbone of your race and of South Africa, but you and such as you are the backbone of the human race. In many an hour of weariness and doubt over the future of woman, of South Africa, and humanity, your sturdy figure on the wagon chest will come back to us. Sit fast, Tante! I see in you a promise of a great free labouring race of men and women for South Africa. The world is not played out while you sit on your wagon box and clap your whip. God bless you! The future is ours, Tante! Let the fools laugh. He laughs loudest, who laughs last!" [63] Tante = Auntie. CHAPTER VI THE BOER AND HIS REPUBLICS