in the same proportion as the cost of his coffee per pound.

On another occasion, a Boer, the extent of whose wealth was probably unknown to himself, found it necessary to dispute certain items in his account with his storekeeper. This sort of thing, by the way, is the rule and by no means the exception. It seems natural also when it is noted that the majority of Boers run twelve-monthly accounts, and by the time they come to square up, they find a difficulty in recognising some of the articles purchased eleven or twelve months previously. This particular gentleman's argument had reference to a pair of spurs, which he deposed had been given to him as a present by the manager, and his hitherto good opinion of the clerk who had charged the spurs in his account was permanently damaged. He said he wasn't a man of that sort. If he wanted to buy spurs, he could pay cash down for about fifteen thousand pairs and, in short, he could buy up all the spurs in the country! He would pay for those spurs now: he wouldn't take a pair of anything, gratis or otherwise, from that merchant as long as he lived. He would go home and put eight horses into his wagonette and drive round the country and tell all his friends about that pair of spurs, and he wouldn't rest until he had completed the task to his own satisfaction.

The book-keeper tried in vain to calm him down by presenting him with a bunch of grapes, but he only regarded the peace-offering with extreme contempt. He wanted to know what else he had been charged with, and the clerk, in conciliatory tones, proceeded to read over the several items. He came to 'one pound of tea.' That was the last straw.

'What! a pound of tea—a pound! Almachtig! Ik koop thee bij de zak (I buy tea by the bag).'

The suspicious nature of the Boer is always in evidence, although the Englishman must perforce humour it. It would be interesting to learn, for instance, how many thousands of pounds are sewn up in mattresses all over the country because the owners are chary concerning the integrity of bank-managers. They have no doubt whatever but that a bank is a paying concern (one Boer entered a bank recently and wanted to see the place where they made the money), but they would much rather keep their own money out of it, in case it should get mixed up with the earnings and savings of other people and be lost. The story runs that one old vrouw journeyed to town in her waggon one day for the express purpose of depositing £300 with the local bank, but when she found that they wanted to give her so much for keeping it (interest) instead of asking her to pay a small amount by way of compensation for taking charge of her money, she became suspicious and took her £300 back to the farm and the double grass mattress once more. It is unnecessary to state that this particular lady never trusted another banking institution.

Waggons Crossing River.ToList

And so it is with other things. When once you have aroused suspicion in the Boer—and it sleeps lightly—you can safely say good-bye to him for ever. He knows within his heart that the English are bent upon taking advantage of him, and when a man makes up his mind like that he is seldom disappointed.

There is one characteristic of the Boer which the most casual observer cannot fail to notice. It is his entire indifference to personal appearance. He likes to see his vrouw gorgeous in all the colours of the rainbow (pink and green being the favourites), and he doesn't mind if the material costs a little over ninepence a yard; but he evinces no desire to discard the suit he has himself worn for three or four years without a change. So long as it holds together, he is content to wear it, and he does not in the least mind what other people may say about it. It may be supposed that this applies exclusively to the poorer classes, but I can assure my readers that I have known it to be the case with scores of men who could well afford to wear a brand-new suit every day of the week and every month of the year. And what does this characteristic indicate? It indicates the man. He has no desire to advance beyond what he is—what his forefathers were. The latter manufactured their own clothing; they made their own shoes, and, had they been presented with a cast-off suit belonging to the Prince of Wales, they could not possibly have appreciated it, and they certainly would never have thought of wearing it. The Boer does not care to dress respectably; he prefers to finger the coin and sit down and watch the increase in his stock. He would have everything converted into stock, because that is his great ambition.

Another thing—he lacks taste. His clothes never by any chance fit him (in the eyes of more refined people), and his boots are always three sizes too large; but then he thinks he is getting more for his money. If he must needs buy boots, he takes care that he invests his money in quantity, not quality, or style.

CHAPTER IIIToC

The Boer would like to lay hands on the man who invented ploughs. Not that he has any aversion to ploughs as ploughs; he merely objects to the labour involved by the introduction of these implements into the market. He sees some sense in an ox, a sheep, a goat, and a horse. Put these animals on a bit of green veldt, and they do the rest themselves; they thrive and multiply, and enhance the position of their owner. But a plough! It means that he requires to take off his coat and stop doing nothing. The Boer would like to argue that if God had meant the soil to be disturbed by ploughs and such like, He would not have left the solution of this problem in the hands of mere inventors: He would have ordained a means whereby the soil would have of itself turned over once a year at springtime.

The Boers are a pastoral people—one can hardly say an agricultural people. They have been that sort of people from the start, and they will never change. They are used to waggons and oxen and sheep, and the waggons and oxen and sheep have got quite used to them. There is abundance of proof in the Dutch Republics to satisfy any ordinary person that a Boer, no matter if he can count his sovereigns by the million, would never dream of giving up his farm and turning country gentleman. He may take no part in the actual work (and this is not much in his line under any circumstances), but he exercises that amount of careful supervision necessary to successful farming, and continues to do so until the end. Even the members of the Volksraad, who are usually well-to-do farmers, never neglect their crops, albeit a handsome income is assured in their official capacity.

But does farming in the Dutch Republics pay? Most emphatically, No. I am not making this assertion because I have tried it myself, I am simply quoting the dictum of every Boer. I have been careful to obtain a consensus of opinion on this question for the guidance of those who may contemplate embarking upon such an unsatisfactory and dangerous undertaking. Farming does not pay. For my own satisfaction, I recently questioned a Boer with regard to his average yearly income, and he was good enough to humour me.

The value of his stock worked out as follows: