Taken as a whole, so vast, so complex, and so beset with difficulty is our South African problem, that it may be truly said that no European nation has had during the last eight hundred years to face anything approaching it in complexity and difficulty. To find any analogy to it we must go back as far as the England of Alfred, when divided Saxons and invading Danes were the elements out of which organic unity had to be constructed. But there are elements in our problem which no European nation has ever had to face, and which no migrating part of a European race has ever had to deal with, in exactly the same form in which they meet us. Our race question is complicated by a question of colour, which presents itself to us in a form more virulent and intense than that in which it has met any modern people. America and India have nothing analogous to it; and it has to be faced in an age which does not allow of the old methods in dealing with alien and so-called inferior peoples. In South Africa the nineteenth century is brought face to face with a prehistoric world. To understand rightly the difficulty of our problem; to grasp the nature of the obstacles which lie in our path to organic union; to understand our crying need of it, and to grasp the grounds we have for hope, it will be necessary to examine closely the different races of which we are composed; and finally, to glance briefly at some of the conditions and individuals that are at the present moment largely influencing the future of South Africa. CHAPTER II[8] THE BOER ... And that one of these days that golden place Shall be reached by the Lemmings yet!... E. A. [8] Written 1892. As in describing the physical features of South Africa, we lingered longest over the Karoo, not because it was one of the largest or most important features in the country, but because it was the most characteristically South African; so in describing its people, we shall dwell first and at greatest length on the South African Boer--not because he is the most important nor the most powerful element among our peoples, but because he is the most typically South African. The Bantu and the Englishman may be found elsewhere on the earth's surface in equal or greater perfection; but the Boer, like our plumbagos, our silver-trees, and our kudoos, is peculiar to South Africa. He is the result of an intermingling of races, acted on during two centuries by a peculiar combination of circumstances, and a result has been produced so unique as only to be decipherable through long and sympathetic study. Our limits will not allow of our entering into an analysis of all those conditions of his early history which have made the Boer what he is to-day. The bare facts are ably and concisely set forth in works readily accessible to all[9]; but the great epic of South Africa which lies beneath them, yet awaits its seer and singer.