Like Cort, who grew up in New Jersey in the 1950s-60s singing "We Are Marching to Pretoria" in school, i grew up in California during the same time, and we were also taught this song.

I believe that it was in a song book alsong with "I've Got Six-Pence," "Kukkabura Sits in the Old Oak Tree," "The Ash Grove" (a dang depressing song for a third or fourth grader!), and a great, rousing, supposedly Russian or Czech or Polish pre-Communist song (in English) with the lines:

Loudly the baron blows his horn!
Wake up, my steward!
Wake up, my steward!
Reaping begins at early morn,
Wake up, my steward,
Day is born!
HEY!

Water from mountain flows
Melted from Winter snows
Turning it gaily goes
Circlling the maple tree
Water from mountain flows
Melted from Winter snows
Turning it gaily goes,
Calling to me!
HEY!

or something to that effect.

And i also wonder, why? why? why?

Why were we singing these very strange songs about the Boer War and the colonization of Australia, and Tsarist Russia (or wherever it was)?

They came from a book, that i know, not from a record.