"And so did I and every Irish soldier; in fact, I deserted the English ranks, and with many others tried to help the brave Boers. They are good people. I could tell you stories that would fill a book about them, and they are religious according to what they know of religion. After the disaster at Colesburg, the Boers helped to bury the British dead; they prayed and sang hymns over the graves, and some of the leaders made impressive speeches, expressing their horror of the war, regretting the losses on both sides, and making supplication to the Heavenly Father that the war would soon end. Oh, it is fine Catholics they would make, but strange to say, I never heard of a Catholic missionary being among them."