CHAPTER II.
The Kafir Wars.
T N that beautiful ode,* in which Euripides dwells with loving fulness on the graces of his native Attica, he places in the forefront of his enumeration the fact that her citizens dwell in a “ sacred and unravaged ” land. With how much greater propriety could an English poet point to that immunity from the ravages of war which has characterised the life of later generations of Englishmen. But there are some who maintain that the discipline of war is necessary for the perfecting of national character. Such persons can find a quick consolation in the reflection that this immunity is by no means the universal experience of the Anglo-Saxon race. Putting the United States on one side—where, in the course of four years, one million lives were lost, and property and labour to the estimated value of two thousand million pounds sterling were squandered—and confining ourselves to the Anglo- Saxon communities within the Empire, there is abundant evidence to show us, who read the history of England as it is written in Canada, in India, in New Zealand, and in South Africa, that the gates are seldom entirely closed upon our British Janus. Of all the Anglo-Saxon communities which have been exposed to the ravages of war —I speak, of course, not of professional soldiers but of non-combatants, civilians, women, and children—none have been exposed more continuously or more fatally to this baneful influence than the English in South Africa.
* In the Medea.