Boere Krygsgevangenes in Ceylon - Boekmakierie.co.za

The greeting was sincere and came from the heart of the kindly man, though the phrasing
was misconceived. What did that matter though? How many of us then could speak as
much Dutch as he did English?
I was spending a Sunday afternoon at Haputale with some good friends of mine, a family
from Colombo, who had come up for the two fold purpose of an up-country holiday and a
visit to the Boer Camp. Seeing a party of Boers pass by along the road we invited them
in.
The hostess asked them to sing and in response the Boers lifted up their voices and sang.
It was a slow and monotonous tune, heartily and lengthily rendered. At the end of the
performance our hostess felt she should say something and remarked it was very solemn.
Ja! Remarked one of the Boers with surprise. It was a P-s-a-l-m (pronounced very much
like solemn).
Later on, it was clear that something was troubling the mind of our worthy hostess. Her
remark that the singing was solemn had been flung back at her by one of the Boers and
now she had a new grievance. She had handed round cups of tea to the Boers and every
man on receiving his cup had said “Donkey”. Alas! All they had said was “Dankje!”
That was a quarter of a century ago, since which the Dutch language has made much
progress in Ceylon.
About a hundred yards to the North East of the Survey Camp is the Boer Cemetery. It is
sad to think that 140 Boers who had survived the dreadful tragedy of war and had arrived
as prisoners of war in Ceylon did not live to return home when peace was declared.
There are 133 Boer graves marked by plain wooden crosses. Seven are unmarked as the
great stone monument erected by the Government of South Africa in 1913 bears 140
names.
Some of these names, reminiscent of the great figures in the war or of some special
interest to Ceylon, are given below:-
Kruger, Cronje, Olivier, Roux, Steyn, Pretorius, Prinsloo, du Plessis, Van Rooyen, de
Villiers, de Jonge, Laurens, Smith, Palm, de Klerk, Nel, de Bruin. The youngest in the
roll of the dead is Douw van der Walt of Bloemfontein aged 16 years, and the oldest W.
J. R. Bretz, also of Bloemfontein, aged 144 years. The latter’s death is the last recorded
with date 17 th December, 1902. He had twice outlived the Psalmist’s span of life. He
had no doubt been in the Great Trek and had known the vicissitudes of good and evil
fortune which his people had experienced during nearly a century and a half. And now
that peace was declared, he had nothing left to live for. Like Simeon of old well might he
have said “Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in Peace; for my eyes have seen Thy
Salvation.”
Oh, the tragedy of those simple inscriptions on the plain wooden crosses. On the 23 rd
December 1900 there were six deaths and on the 24 th December five deaths. An