Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/268

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composed the elder Brady's company, five returned safe and sound at the end of the war. The others were killed, crippled, or died from illness. . . . You perhaps imagine that because the English whipped the Boers, the English control the Transvaal. As a matter of fact, the present local government, elected by the people, is Boer. The Boers in politics are called Nationalists; the English are called Unionists, and at the recent election the Nationalists won. There is a Labor party here, also, but is is not as strong as it is in Australia, New Zealand, or England itself. The Boer members of parliament are in a big row among themselves. One leader believes in reconciling the differences between the Boers and English, while the other is a fire-eater. The conservative man is much more popular among the Boers, apparently, than the fire-eater. . . . The Boers frequently quarrel among themselves. There are two branches of the Dutch Reformed Church, and several years ago the warring factions armed, and almost engaged in civil war, over the interpretation of a passage of scripture. . . . Johannesburg has recently opened a new and very handsome public market on the site of the old Coolie village. The plague broke out among the Coolies, so their village was burned, and now the blacks live in a section further out. Hindus, negroes, Chinese and Malays live there; no white resident is permitted in the village, nor is a Hindu or other black permitted to live in any other section of Johannesburg. Dr. Gregory, a Hindu who was educated in Edinburgh and who married a Scotch wife, had a large practice among the whites, but when the order came segregating the blacks, he was com-