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dealt Damoxenos one on the head, the latter told him to hold up his hand, and then drove his fingers right into Kreugas, beneath the ribs, and pulled out his entrails. Kreugas of course died on the spot, but was crowned as victor, on the ground that Damoxenos had broken his agreement of striking one blow in turn, by striking him with five separate fingers! But this curious decision was only one of many in which a boxing competitor was disqualified for having fought with the intention of maiming his antagonist.

Little need be added about the pankration, which combined boxing and wrestling, and permitted every sort of physical violence except biting. In this contest a mere fall did not end the affair, as was usual in wrestling, but the conflict was always carried on on the ground, and often ended in one of the combatants being actually choked, or having his fingers and toes broken. One man, Arrachion, at the last gasp, broke his adversary's toe, and made him give in, at the moment that he was dying of strangulation. Such contests were not to the credit either of the humanity, or of the good taste of the Greeks, and would not be tolerated, even in the lowest of our prize rings.

I propose now to conclude the present sketch by giving some account of the general management of the prize meetings.

There was no want of excitement and of circumstance about them. In the case of the four great ones there was even a public truce proclaimed, and the competitors were guaranteed a safe journey to visit them, and to return to their homes. The umpires at the Olympic games were chosen ten months before at Elis, and seem to have numbered one for each clan, varying through Greek history from two to twelve, but finally fixed at ten. They were called both here and at the other great games Ελλανοδίκαι, judges of the Hellenes, thus recognising their national character. Three judged the pentathlon, three the horse races, and the rest for the other games. They

had to reside together in a public building, and undergo strict training in all the details of their business, in which they were assisted by heralds, trumpeters, stewards, &c. Their office was looked upon as of much dignity and importance.

When the great day came, they sat in purple robes in the semicircular end of the race-course-a piece of splendour which the modern Greeks imitate by dressing the judges of the new Olympic games in full evening dress and white kid gloves. The effect even now with neatly-clothed candidates is striking enough; what must it have been when a row of judges in purple looked on solemnly at a pair of men dressed in oil and dust,-i.e. in mudwrestling or rolling upon the ground. The crowd cheered and shouted as it now does. Pausanias mentions a number of cases where they disqualified competitors for unfairness, and in most of them the man's city took up the quarrel, which became quite a public matter; but at the time the decision was final, nor do I remember a case where it was afterwards reversed.1 They were also obliged to exact beforehand from each candidate an oath that he was of pure Hellenic descent, that he had not taken, or would not take, any unfair advantage, and that he had spent ten months in strict training. This last rule I do not believe. It is absurd in itself, and is contradicted by such anecdotes as that of the sturdy ploughboy quoted above, and still more directly by the remark of Philostratos (Tvμv. 38), who ridicules any inquiry into the morals or training of an athlete by the judges. Its only meaning could have been to exclude random candidates, if the number was excessive, and in late

1 The first case of cheating was said to have taken place in the 98th Ol. (388 B.C.), when the Thessalian Eupolos was convicted of bribing the three boxers opposed to him, one of whom had won at the previous meeting. Such crimes were commemorated by bronze figures of Zeus (called Zaves at Elis), which were made out of the fines inflicted, and had inscriptions warning all athletes of the dangers and the disgrace of cheating.

But

days some such regulation may have subsisted, but I do not accept it for the good classical days. There is a case of a boy being rejected for looking too young and weak, and winning in the next Olympiad among the men. in another case the disqualified competitor (for unfairness) went mad with disappointment. Aristotle notes that it was the rarest possible occurrence for a boy champion to turn out successful among the full-grown athletes, but Pausanias seems to contradict him, a fair number of cases being cited among the selection which he makes.

There is yet one unpleasant feature to be noted, which has disappeared from our sports. Several allusions make it plain that the vanquished, even vanquished boys, were regarded as fit subjects for jibe and ridicule, and that they sneaked home by lanes and back ways. When the most ideal account which we have of the games gives us this information, we cannot hesitate to accept it as probably a prominent feature, which is, moreover, thoroughly consistent with the character of the old Greeks as I conceive it.'

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The general conclusion to which all these details lead us is this, that with all the care and with all the pomp expended on Greek athletic meetings, despite the exaggerated fame attained by victors, and the solid rewards both of money and of privileges accorded them by their grateful country, the results attained physically seem have been inferior to those of English athletes. There was moreover an element of brutality in them, which is very shocking to modern ideas, and not all the ideal splendour of Pindar's praises, or of Pythagoras' art can raise the Greek pankratiast as an athlete much above the level of a modern prize-fighter. But nevertheless by the aid of their monumental statues, their splendid lyric poetry, and the many literary and musical contests which were combined with gymnastic con

1 The reader will find some illustrations of it in my Social Greece, p. 96.

tests, the Greeks contrived, as usual, to raise very common things to a great national manifestation of culture which we cannot hope to equal.

For common they were, and very human, in the strictest sense. Dryasdust scholars would have us believe that the odes of Pindar give a complete picture of these games, as if all the booths about the course had not been filled with idlers, pleasuremongers, and the scum of Greek society. Tumbling, thimble-rigging, and fortune-telling, along with love-making and trading, made Olympia a scene not unlike the Derby. When the drinking parties of young men began in the evening, there may even have been a soupçon of Donnybrock Fair about it, but that the committee of management were probably strict in their discipline. From the Isthmian games the successful athletes, with their training over, retired, as most athletes do, to the relaxation afforded by city amusements. Cne can imagine how amply Corinth provided for the outburst of liberty after the long and arduous subjection of physical training.

But all these things are perhaps justly forgotten, and it is ungrateful to revive them from oblivion. The dust and dross of human conflict, the blood and the gall, the pain and the revenge-all this was laid aside like the athlete's dress, and could not hide the glory of his naked strength and his iron endurance. The idleness and vanity of human admiration have vanished with the motley crowd, and have left us free to study the deeper beauty of human vigour with the sculptor, and the spiritual secrets of its hereditary origin with the pcet. Thus Greek gymnastic, with all its defects, perhaps even with its absurdities, has done what has never been even the dream of its modern sister; it stimulated the greatest artists and the highest intellects in society, and through them ennobled and purified public taste and public morals.

J. P. MAHAFTY.

70

THE TRANSVAAL.

THE world has seen many republics, as various in their constitutions as in their eras of existence and their situations, but it is to be doubted whether it ever beheld a self-governing community so unique in itself, or so unconventional in its history, as the South African Republic beyond the the Vaal River. In order to understand its present position, it is necessary to enter briefly into the causes which have led to that position, and to give some short account of the history of its inhabitants, the Dutch Boers.1

When, 240 years ago, Dutchmen first took up their abode in the Cape Colony proper, they were remarkable as individuals of a people second to none in spirit, daring, and commercial enterprise. These good qualities can, however, hardly be said to have been fostered during the first 150 years of their sojourn in their adopted home.

The tale of the Dutch rule at the Cape is but a wearisome repetition of repression and extortion on the part of the government, and murmuring and misery on the part of the governed. The purpose for which the Dutch East India Company originally colonised the Cape was purely a selfish one, and gain its sole object. The Cape formed a convenient victualing-place for their Indian vessels, and so long as it answered this purpose, the welfare of the colonists was a matter of the most secondary importance. The condition of these men was indeed wretched. They might not buy except from the government at a fixed high price, nor sell except to the government at a fixed low price; they might not trade till the government had done trading, nor come and go without its express permission. On all sides they were shackled by rules and regulations which made the attainment of wealth

1 Pronounced very nearly like "boors."

an impossibility, and existence in ease and comfort difficult. It is therefore little to be wondered at that there sprang up in the breasts of these unfortunates an insatiable craving for freedom and a steady hatred of all rule. Generation after generation this feeling grew stronger, till it became an ingrained and radical part of their natures, and, as will be seen, is still one of their leading characteristics.

This strong aversion to control, springing from the circumstances of a dreary past, has been the leading difficulty with which the English Government has had to contend since its capture of the Cape a century ago. This feeling has been the secret source from which has sprung the roving spirit of the Boers, a roving which, were the real truth spoken, has for its object the escape from authority however light, and from restraint however imperceptible. Thus the Dutch hated the rule of the Company because it was tyrannical, and when the English Government became their masters it accorded well with their natures to hate that too, because it was foreign. They gladly, however, availed themselves of the comparative liberty it allowed them to put great tracts of country between themselves and its control, and as the years rolled on, this sturdy race, cut off by the exigences of its position from communication with the outer world, and left to find within itself all that is brought about by the interchange and intercourse of nations, developed traits that in time became marked characteristics, and showed itself to be foremost among the peculiar peoples of the world. Dotted here and there over the vast extent of the Cape Colony, they formed themselves into small clans, over which the head of the family exercised a species of patriarchal rule. They did

not, however, live together, but stretched themselves over large tracts of country, each member of the family occupying a farm from 6,000 to 20,000 acres in extent. Their farming, like that of the patriarchs of old, was, and still is, almost purely pastoral, the richer among them owning many thousand head of cattle.

But this people afford a striking proof of the theory that the possession of huge extents of land does not induce a corresponding love of the soil, but tends rather to foster a wandering and nomadic spirit. Thus these Dutch Thus these Dutch Boers would on the slightest pretext, such as a season's drought or the increase of population in their neighbourhood, gather their family and herds together and trek away to regions more congenially wild, preferring to face the ills they knew not of rather than those they knew, however slight. Yet these strange men possessed in many cases minds and qualities far superior to what their shrinking hatred of civilization would lead the observer to suppose.

Take the average Dutch Boer as he stands to welcome you to his house, with his Frau and numerous children grouped around him. You see an awkward-looking man, of large stature, and somewhat heavy, obstinate face, which is lit with a broad and kindly smile of greeting. His home, it is true, is not over clean, nor are his habits over nice, but his hospitality is most hearty, and the best he has is at your disposal. You will find him intensely religious, believing his Bible down to the very pictures, and obeying his "reverend pastor" without scruple; and you will also find him intensely prejudiced against everything modern and civilized. Rising and resting with the sun, a wholesome liver and a small consumer of spirits, his strength is great and his life long. Save an occasional visit to a town to buy ammunition and clothing, he mixes but little with his kind. Nations and powers may rise or fall, he knows it not, and would scarcely deign to give

his attention to anything so far off and so frivolous. The roar of the great world scarcely reaches him in his solitudes, and provided he could still obtain his powder and his coffee, it might, for aught he cares, cease for ever. Thus the Dutch Boer passes a wild and free existence, far removed from the hot life of men, in which the lapse of time is marked by the year when he was called out on such a commando to fight the frontier Kafirs, or by his having treked to a new district, and finally by the date when, getting old, he applied himself to the manufacture of that coffin you see suspended from the rafters. Such was the South African Boer forty years ago, and in the interval he may have modified, but he has not changed.

It will be easily understood that such a mode of life and of thought has not been conducive to the ready acceptance of and obedience to regulations and laws, which, though framed with good intentions and based on great principles, pressed with some severity on the persons interested.

The English rule, besides being the rule of a conquering race, was of too progressive a nature ever to be very popular with the conservative Cape Boers; still it was tolerated, till a series of untoward events made it so odious to them that many of them decided to risk extinction at the hands of the savage native tribes beyond their borders, rather than remain subjects of the British Government.

The measures which finally induced the Boers to take this step were all connected with the relations which existed between themselves and the various coloured races with whom they had to do. The Boer, though a kindlyhearted man, has never been able to realise the truth of the missionary's motto, "All men are brothers." He considers that the black man ought to work as well as himself, and what is more, he considers that he ought to work for him. Therefore he was unutterably disgusted when persons calling themselves missionaries-some of

whom, it appears, had no right to the name-came and enticed away the Hottentot servants, on whom he mainly depended for labour, and established them in communities over which they ruled as a species of chiefs. The Hottentots were naturally but too willing to enter societies where they could exist with little or no labour, and where the price of admission was nothing more than a harmless form they did not understand, called baptism. Thus in a few years the Boer farmers were almost entirely deprived of Hottentot labour, and the country was spotted with settlements of thieves and vagabonds. Bad as this was, and heavily as it pressed on the Boer population, it was as nothing compared to what was to follow-the sudden liberation of all the slaves on the 1st December, 1838. The liberation took place in the midst of the wheat harvest, which rotted where it stood. By it, very many persons were ruined, for the money compensation awarded was utterly inadequate, amounting, when everything was deducted, to about forty pounds for a slave worth from one to six hundred pounds.

These measures then, together with the violent condemnation of the conduct of the colonists in the Kafir war of 1834 by Lord Glenelg, the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, irritated the minds of the Dutch Boers to such an extent, and created an aversion so deep-rooted to the English rule, that many of them determined to quit for ever the land of their birth, and seek an untrammelled home in the vast and barbaric territories that stretched away to the northward unlimited and unclaimed. Upon application being made to Lieutenant-Governor Stockenstroom, that official was forced to own that he knew of no law to prevent any of his Majesty's subjects from quitting his dominions. This settled the question. Their doubts thus resolved, a party of some 200 souls, with Hendrick Potgieter at their head, treked across the Orange River, and advanced slowly

along the banks of the Vaal, where they were in time joined by clans yet more numerous, from the Graaf Reinet and Albany divisions, under the leadership of Carl Landman, Jacobus Uys, and others.1 In this extraordinary exodus the farmers left their homes and the homes of their ancestors, and set forth like blindfolded men to carve new fortunes for themselves, they knew not how or whither. For many years they had, like the children of Israel, to contend with fierce tribes who gave and took no mercy; for many years their hand was to be against every man's, and every man's hand against them. To follow them in all their wanderings would be but to give a sickening repetition of tales of bloodshed, treachery, and slaughter; but in order to explain and account for the feeling, so much wondered at by modern philanthropists, that exists between the Boers and the natives, it will be necessary to touch on some of the events to which it owes its origin.

Shortly after their emigration the Boers elected one Pieter Retief, a man of great energy and decision of character, to the post of CommandantGeneral. Having formed alliances with most of the powerful chiefs, this restless spirit determined to cross the Suathlamba, or Drakensberg Mountains, and, together with the clans of Uys and Potgieter, to occupy the territory known as Port Natal. Leaving therefore the main body of the farmers, now settled in the territories since known as the Orange Sovereignty and the Transvaal, Retief and his venturesome followers crossed the great mountains, and after an arduous journey arrived at the Bay of Natal, where Durban is now situated, in perfect safety. Here he found a small party of English adventurers, who greeted him and his people with open arms. little community was under the nomi

This

1 The Vaal is the upper portion of the Gariep or Orange River. The Transvaal territory lies to the north of it, between 22° and 27° S. Lat., and 27° and 31° E. Long.

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