We would not, however, for a moment have it understood that an
anti-social attitude towards the native is peculiar to the African-born
farmer. So far is this from being the case, that, where men newly
arrived from Europe are thrown into the same close contact and come
into conflict with aboriginal natives, their attitude is generally
far less human, _and has in it an element of complete callousness and
cold contempt_, seldom or never found among men born in South Africa,
who have grown up among the native races. This may appear strange, but
an analogous phenomenon has often been noted in America, where it has
been observed that the slave-owners in the Southern States, in spite
of their dominance over the slaves and occasional acts of brutality
and oppression, really regarded them more as fellow humans and were
emotionally nearer to them, than were, in many cases, the Northerners
who came to live in the South, and who, on first meeting them, were
often filled with shrinking and disgust.
The African-born farmer, Dutch or English, who has grown up among the
natives, has been nursed by them in childhood, often speaks their
language, and knows something of their manners and ideas, may hate
them; but always, in his heart of hearts, he recognizes them as men;
and his very hatred and bitterness is a kind of tribute to the common
humanity that he feels binds them. Man only hates man.
To the newcomer from Europe, on the other hand, who becomes a farmer,
or is otherwise thrown into contact with the aboriginal native, he is
often an object, not merely of hatred, but of contempt and sport; there
is no mere assumption of cynicism when he speaks of the native merely
as an object of the chase; he has often no other view with regard to
him. We have heard a brilliant young English officer, who had only
been a few years in the country, but had been employed in what is
called a "Native War," dwell with manifest and almost boyish delight
on the pleasures of Bantu-hunting. He described the curious delight
you feel in finding the mark of a naked foot and tracing it down. "It
is," he said, "like the pleasure of the hunting field--with something
added!" We have also known a skilful English doctor, a man of singular
tenderness and generosity towards persons of his own nationality, who
had been only eight years in the country, but had served in two native
campaigns, remark that the only two purposes for which natives were
of any use were to serve as targets for rifle-shooting and as good
subjects for vivisection; while his inhumanity towards wounded and
other natives was a matter of common remark among the South African
burghers. And a fine young English trooper who had been two years in
the country, after hearing our view on the native question, remarked
thoughtfully: "Well, you know, all this is quite new to me; I have
never regarded the nigger as anything but something to shoot." To the
South African-born man this light-hearted, callous, sporting attitude
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