A Naturalist in the Transvaal

Cover A Naturalist in the Transvaal

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Boer WacÏon With Fjrewood. CHAPTER II. THE BOER. Where arc the Roerá ??The Boer a farmer.?Grass-fires nnd their consequences.?Habits of the fanner.?Peculiar theology of the Boer which governs his life and action.?Boer relations to the Kafirs.?Violence of Church disputes.?President KrUjjer.?Some causes of the Boer Wa

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r. ?The Boers ?? soldiers.?Homely life of the President; his great influence with the Boers.?Many farmers now wealthy men.?Physical characteristics of the Boers ; their supposed dislike to the British ; their mistrust of the Hollanders. One of the first questions I asked after residing a short time in Pretoria, the capital of Boer-land, was, where are the Boers I They are not to be found employed in the Government offices, for here Hollanders are generally engaged ; they do not keep stores?at least, so seldom, that the exception proves the rule ; there are no Boer clerks in mercantile offices, no handicraft or manufacture carried on by them. British, Dutch, and German are the nationalities which compose the population ; but where are the Boers ? Beyond the farmers who bring in their produce and firewood for sale, and can be found at the early morning market, the Boer is a visitor at Pretoria, and the same remark applies to all the towns of the Transvaal. The Boer is a farmer, or, more correctly, a dweller on the veld?he loves solitude and cares nothing for the outside world. I had frequent business relations with one, which occasioned almost weekly visits, and as webecame fairly good friends, this farmer may be taken as a typical example of the Boer. This man possesses a tract of 20,000 acres, which is called a farm. Scarcely any of this domain is cultivated ; it embraces part of a range of hills which forms a boundary, and contains several isolated ...

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