Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt:...Dutch are scattered all over the country as sheep and cattle farmers; a large number of English people are also settled on the land, but most of them are to be found in the towns and mining centres. The genuine South African Boers lead a solitary and patriarchal existence on their farms, many of which extend for miles, and include large areas of the richest arable land, of which, however, the Boer cultivates but a very small part. He is quite content if he has suflicient pasturage for his cattle and a little seed-earth for his corn; and the more rapid roads to wealth, especially if they necessitate residence in a town or a prolonged stay at a mining centre, have no attractions for him. Lord Randolph Churchill, during his tour through South Africa, formed a very poor opinion of the Boer population gener Froude. ally. The Boer farmer, he says, personifies useless idleness, passing his day doing absolutely nothing beyond smoking and drinking coffee, perfectly uneducated, and proud that his children should grow up as ignorant, as uncultivated, and as hopelessly unprogressive as himself. Other writers admire the Boer as a model pioneer, and regard the trek-Boers as marvels of hardihood and cool courage in the face of apparently insuperable and overwhelming difficulties. Selous dwells upon the simple kindness and great hospitality for which the Boers have always been noted, and says that no people in the world are more genuinely kind and hospitable to strangers than the South African Dutch. He is also convinced that, in South Africa, the Dutch element will never be swamped by the English, as it has been in America. The South African Dutch are one of the most prolific races in the world, and very large families of from twelve to sixteen children are not uncommon....