Boere Krygsgevangenes in Ceylon - Boekmakierie.co.za

Journal of the Dutch Burger Union of Ceylon
VOL XVIII January 1929 No 3
THE BOERS AT DIYATALAWA
BY E. H. VAN DER WALL
The Victorian age ended in the crash and conflict of the Great Boer War. The youngest
combatants in that war have reached the dignity of middle age. Most of the older men
sleep with their fathers. It is a war that has now receded into history.
Diyatalawa was a creation of the Great Boer War. Before that period it was
geographically known but not discovered. Smiling in the sunshine of the rolling patanas,
it was the Happy Valley that lay beneath the Industrial Home, conducted by the Rev. Mr.
Langdon of the Wesleyan Mission. It was just a glorious bit of landscape, only that and
nothing more.
And then the opportunity came. Where were the thousands of Boer prisoners to be
interned? The fertile brain of Sir West Ridgeway, Governor of Ceylon, supplied the
answer. At Diyatalawa of course.
Here was indeed a suggestion of home for the prisoners of war. The distant mountains,
the rolling veldt, the cold dry air – it was South Africa all over again. And besides, it was
a land once colonized by men of their own blood and breed.
The suggestion was enthusiastically received by the authorities, but in Ceylon there were
rumblings of discontent. The wise and the prudent scanned their kitchen accounts and
shook their heads disapprovingly. Would not the cost of living rise? Sir West Ridgeway
was a diplomat. He was also an orator. He made one of the most brilliant speeches in his
brilliant career. The occasion was the Royal College prize distribution and the hall was
packed. “Yes something might happen” he added after he had calmed all fears. “The
price of pumpkins might possibly rise!” Nothing after all is so effective a weapon as
ridicule. The newspapers lost their latest sensation.
I was one of the first to see the Boers arrive and to visit them at Diyatalawa. The war had
let loose a flood of literature and we heard ad nauseam that the Boers were rough and
uncultured, dirty in their habits, crafty and treacherous. The impressions I formed were
of a totally different kind.
Taken as a whole it must be admitted that the Boers were not tailor-made men. But their
appearance and habits were not different from those of civilized farmers in any part of the
world. Certainly there were some Boers at Diyatalawa whose culture and refinement
would not have failed to make an impression on any assembly of men whatsoever. It
must be remembered that the Boers constituted an entire race with necessarily varying
types.