Hospitality of Cape colonists — Cheating and jealousy in business — Comfortless homes — Spoilt children — Education — The "Schoolmaster" — Convent schools — A priest-ridden nation — The _Nachtmaal_ — Old French names — A South African duke in Paris — Fine-looking men — Fat women — Ignorance of _Vrouws_ — Boers unfriendly to English — A mean man.

There is much to be admired in the character of those decidedly unpolished diamonds, the colonial-born, English-speaking inhabitants of the Karroo. They are a fine, sturdy, self-reliant race, splendidly fitted in every way for their extremely rough-and-ready surroundings. In kindliness and hospitality they are unsurpassed, even by the much-praised dwellers in Arab tents or white, flat-roofed Moorish houses; and in the isolated homesteads where they live their rough, but simple and healthy lives, the heartiest reception is invariably accorded alike to friends, slight acquaintances, and even perfect strangers. Perhaps you are one of the latter, and, on a long journey, you outspan at the dam of a farm, with the intention of remaining only long enough to give the horses the necessary water and rest before you trek again. But no sooner is your cart or spider seen to stop than you are sought out, with kind and pressing invitation to come in. No matter how full the house may already be, how late or inconvenient the hour of your unexpected arrival on a Cape farm, a place is always found for you at the table; and, if needed, some sort of a night's lodging, of however impromptu a description, will be prepared for you. The colonist joyfully makes you welcome to his best. If you are staying in his house, a mount or a seat in his conveyance is always at your disposal; and the longer you can remain, the better he and all his kind-hearted family are pleased. It is true that their home is far from being a luxurious one, and that none of them have much idea of comfort; but the latter article being, on account of the isolation and of the bad servants, somewhat difficult of attainment, it is on the whole just as well that no one misses it sufficiently to regret its absence; and one cannot but admire and envy the philosophical manner in which the colonists take things as they come, making themselves perfectly happy under any circumstances.

Altogether there is so much that is lovable in the colonial character, that you are sometimes disappointed to find that there is a reverse to this bright side of the picture, and that—even by those who have received you the most hospitably, and who apparently, while you were their guest, could not do enough for you—you are liable, in business transactions, to be woefully cheated. It is thought no disgrace to get the better of any one in a bargain, whether on an iniquitously large or contemptibly small scale; on the contrary, it is considered rather clever and smart to "do a shot" on the guileless and unsuspecting new chum, fresh from a country where a somewhat different code of honour obtains.

Business jealousies, too, are another source of trouble to the uninitiated. If any farmer has a project which seems likely to turn out a good thing for him, he had better be careful that no bird of the air whispers it about beforehand among his neighbours and rivals, who, one and all, will only be too glad if they can bring his plans to naught.

Time seems to be of no more value to the Cape colonists than it is to the followers of Islam, and "letting things slide" is pretty generally the order of the day. One is rather puzzled at this weak point in otherwise active, energetic characters; and certainly, living as these people do in the splendid air of the Cape—exhilarating as champagne, and making all who inhale it feel glad to be alive—they cannot, like the limp, supine inhabitants of Eastern lands, plead the excuse of an enervating climate. Much of the discomfort in the houses is due to this frightful habit of procrastinating. Whatever is broken is, as often as not, left unmended for an indefinite time; little repairs, which need but the minimum of time and trouble, but the neglect of which would cause daily annoyance and discomfort to any but these easy-going mortals, are put off from week to week and from month to month. And every one is just as happy and contented, with violent draughts and clouds of dust blowing in through two or three broken windows at once; or with a glass outer door whose handle has been off for months, and which continually flaps noisily backwards and forwards, admitting gusts of cold wind and flocks of turkeys and fowls into the room; as if all things were in perfect order. Poultry and domestic animals, indeed, have it all their own way on Karroo farms with the delightful freedom enjoyed by their brethren in Irish cabins. At one house, for instance, if the dining-room was left for a moment when the cloth was laid for a meal, half a dozen fowls would be on the table, picking the bread to pieces; while in another I have several times assisted our hosts in ejecting a too-friendly pig from the bedroom. To give South African pigs their due, I must say that in that driest of climates they are less uncleanly in their persons, and hence rather less objectionable indoors, than they would be in Europe. But we had English prejudices, and discountenanced the visits of members of the farm-yard; and Toto had standing orders, which he faithfully obeyed, to keep the rooms clear of live stock of all kinds, with the exception of privileged pets.

Even more terrible than the intrusive animals are the spoilt children. During their earlier years the little colonists are left very much to themselves: they run wild, like young colts, about their native farm, no one takes the trouble to interfere with them, and they are allowed to retain, unchecked, all the rude, rough habits which they have acquired from their uncivilized Hottentot nurse-girls. They do as they like, say whatever comes uppermost, and behave at table in any sort of outrageous fashion that pleases them; while the father and mother sit unmoved, apparently surprised at nothing their progeny may see fit to do. The latter being totally unencumbered by bashfulness, the presence of strangers acts as no restraint; and a dinner taken in the company of a large family of boys, of stolid parents, and indifferent elder sisters, is for the newly-imported English visitor a novel and rather startling experience, the details of which, however, are best left to oblivion.

But, on the whole, the young Africander's bringing-up—unpleasant though he certainly is during the process—is no doubt the best possible one to fit him for the rough and active life of the farms, and to form in him that independent character and those habits of self-reliance and smartness in money matters which, when he is grown up, stand him in such good stead. And he does grow up with astounding rapidity; being at fifteen a thorough man of business, able to "do a deal" with any one, and taking good care, you may be sure, that the transaction is no unprofitable one to himself. In this respect he affords a decided contrast to the average young Englishman, who, at twenty-five, is often—where business matters are concerned—as inexperienced as a boy.

The difficulties in the way of providing the children with a good education are by no means one of the least of South African drawbacks; especially for those living on the far-off country farms. Colonial schools do not seem to be much in favour, at least for boys, and the great ambition of a Cape parent is to send his sons home to be educated in Europe—most frequently for the medical profession, a doctor's position being the most coveted one in the colony. In the Edinburgh University, especially, the Africander element is in great force. Those parents who cannot afford to have their boys educated in Europe generally contrive to secure the services of some broken-down gentleman, occasionally even of a clergyman, who lives on the farm and—too often for a shamefully small salary, indeed in one or two instances for nothing but his keep—fills the post of tutor, or, as his employers call him, "schoolmaster," to the turbulent young tribe. As may be imagined, his life is not a very enviable one, the breaking-in process being all the harder in consequence of the long period, prior to his advent, when his charges were allowed to run wild out of doors all day long—to the immense benefit, no doubt, of their robust young bodies, but to the utter neglect of all intellectual and moral training.

The schoolmaster does not seem to have been a very general institution in the days when some of the older colonists were young; and a business correspondence with Karroo farmers sometimes elicits the wildest vagaries of orthography. T——, for instance, received a letter from one of our neighbours, in which the following sentences occurred: "Your hostridges are vary onpleasand on the public outspan. Pleas to try and halter tham." Another correspondent, intent on the purchase of ostriches, told us he wished "to bye buirds."

For girls, the convent schools in several of the larger towns are undoubtedly the best, both as regards the good, sensible education imparted, and the refined, lady-like manners which are invariably acquired by all who have been brought up under the tutelage of the nuns. Throughout the whole country, the convent-bred girls can always be recognised at a glance, and the contrast is very striking between them and the less fortunate ones who possess but the superficial education and second-rate manners of the average colonial boarding-school. Even the daughters of the roughest Boers, if sent to a convent school, are turned out perfect ladies, and return to their up-country homes with gentle and gracious manners strangely out of keeping with their uncouth surroundings. But there are many parents, of course, to whom all the advantages of convent education could not compensate for that insuperable objection, the risk of Romanizing influence; and intending settlers in the colony who do not wish to expose their daughters to that risk will do well to bring out a good governess with them, and keep the girls at home.

The Boer's great desire, like that of his English-speaking neighbour, is to get his boys educated in Europe; but, instead of the medical profession, the pastorate is the object of his ambition. For these Cape Dutch, although Protestants, are quite as priest-ridden as any Roman Catholic nation; the predikant is a great man indeed throughout the widespread circle of his parishioners, and to offend him, or even to fail in paying him the exact amount of deference he considers his due, means to be boycotted.

The nachtmaal, or communion, is only administered—as among Scotch Presbyterians—twice or three times during the year; and on these rare occasions the little town or village where there is a Dutch church becomes the lively scene of an immense gathering of Boers, vrouws, and families. They have come, many of them from long distances of three or four days' journey, plodding along in waggons drawn by long spans of oxen, driving in roomy conveyances of every possible queer and antiquated shape, or travelling on horseback—the stout, ungainly women, in their white kappjes and gaudily-coloured dresses, cantering clumsily by the side of their lords. The crowd of outspanned vehicles, drawn up close together, form a kind of large camp and, the Boer being always ready to combine piety with business—and, if need be, with a good deal of cheating—the nachtmaal ends with a busy fair or market, in which a very brisk trade is carried on, all kinds of farm produce being sold or bartered.

In nearly all the Dutch houses you find curious old family Bibles, many of them in black-letter, with quaint and interesting maps. In some of the latter, representing Africa, the lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza are marked, though quite in the wrong places. The good old French names borne by so many of the Boers tell of their Huguenot descent; Du Plessis, De Villiers, Du Toit, Du Barry, etc., are all names of frequent occurrence in South Africa, although the French language is never spoken, the Dutch having prohibited its use among the refugees when the latter settled in the colony. Some time ago, Napoleon III., anxious to restore the ancient nobility, sent for one of these Boers, who, in the old country, was the heir to a dukedom, inviting him to resume his title and estates. The colonist came to Paris, and, after giving European life a fair trial, became homesick for his vineyard and his farm, and—perhaps impelled by that attraction which seems to draw back to the Cape those who have once lived under its bright sky—decided in favour of his old-fashioned life, and, resigning all his ancestral rights, went joyfully home to the rough surroundings of his childhood.

Although the Boers are fine, well-built, handsome men, their feminine relatives, far from equalling them in good looks, are as fat and ungraceful as any inmates of Turkish harems. Fortunately, however, excessive obesity is in the eyes of a Boer the very quality of all others which constitutes the chief attraction of a mooie vrouw (handsome woman); and when he uses the latter expression you may be sure that he speaks of a ponderous being, no less than thirteen or fourteen stone in weight. In this matter of taste the Boers resemble not only the Turks, but also the Zulus, who can pay a woman no higher compliment than to compare her to a she-elephant. The vrouws become passÉes at a very early age, and are apparently shortlived in comparison with their lords, if one may judge from the fact that it is no uncommon thing to meet a man of fifty who has already had three wives.

Intellectually, no less than physically, the Boer women are considerably the inferiors of the men. They have evidently lived for generations in blissful ignorance, with no more education than falls to the lot of the Oriental ladies they so closely resemble in figure. Their husbands and fathers have been quite contented with the existing state of things; and it is only of late years that a few of the more enlightened parents, beginning at last to recognise the value of female education, have been sending their daughters to the convent schools.

In Spain, an equally strong contrast may be observed between the men and the women; but it is reversed, the advantage being on the side of the seÑoras, who somehow appear too handsome and intelligent to belong to the ignoble, mean-looking men.

The Boers used to be very friendly with the English; but now—thanks to the sad and too well-known manner in which our Government has muddled South African affairs—we are most unpopular. Formerly, if an Englishman on his journey came to a Dutchman's house, he was most hospitably received—though etiquette demanded that on his departure he should offer money in payment for his food and bed, in order that his host might have the pleasure of refusing it; but now, were he to present himself, the chances are that the Boer would insultingly offer him a night's lodging in the negroes' quarters, as was once the case with T——.

Meanness is a prominent trait in the Boer's character. Indeed, the reputation which he has acquired—not altogether justly—for being such a splendid shot, really and truly proceeds from his excessive care to make sure of his game, and thus waste no cartridges. Here is an instance which almost equals Max Adeler's mean man. When T—— was at the Kimberley Diamond Fields, a Kaffir fell one day from the narrow pathway left between the claims into one of the latter, belonging to a Dutchman. He landed on the little table used by the Boer for sorting his diamonds, and—the height from which he had fallen being eighty feet—not only the table, but nearly every bone in the unfortunate man's body was broken. He seems, however, to have possessed a wonderfully strong constitution, and actually recovered from his terrible injuries: and, his case exciting very general sympathy among the kindly diamond-diggers, a subscription was made for him. But, long before he was convalescent, the Boer called on him, demanding payment for the broken table, the whole value of which did not amount to more than thirty shillings.