VIEWS OF THE BOERS.
The Boers may be considered the real strength of the population of the Transvaal, or South African Republic.
They number at least eight thousand families, which support themselves by farm work of some description.
The Boers are generally peasants, though they are usually the wealthiest land owners in the country.
The character of the Boers has been strongly impressed by their wanderings and sufferings. Their habits of life, too, have necessarily been greatly modified through adverse circumstances and by the peculiar features of their surroundings.
If one of a family is about to ride but a few miles away from his home, he takes leave of the members of his household with almost as much ceremony and affection as though going on a journey to a foreign country. In the same manner, persons, whether they are visitors, neighbors, or relatives, on entering a household for the first time, greet each member of the family, and, in turn, receive a hearty clasp of the hand from each, as a welcome and a token of hospitality and rejoicing.
This custom evidently originated from the feelings of uncertainty experienced in the vicissitudes of life forty years ago. Friends meeting after an absence were in the habit of greeting one another as though they had been delivered from some great danger. While those who were about to leave home parted from their friends as though they were never to meet again.
In the early days of their settlement the Boers had few candles. Constantly driven from one point to another, their life in the wilderness, where they hoped and planned to found their homes, proved a long and weary pilgrimage. A little coarse fat from the animals which they slaughtered and a bit of rag made their only lamp. Crude as it was, it answered their needs, for these people acquired a habit of going early to their rest and rising at the first break of dawn, in order to utilize every bit of daylight for their labor.
This habit of "early to bed and early to rise" has become characteristic of the Boers. It is a very rare thing to meet with a family that enjoys the pleasant evening hour, clustered around the fireside or about the center table with its cheerful lights, its books, papers, and other features of comfort and culture.
The daily life of the Boers is of the most primitive character. At the close of the day, or as soon as the sun has sunk below the horizon, the cattle and other stock are gathered into the kraals and places of safety, and the labor of the day is practically over. A short twilight is enjoyed, then follows the evening meal, a dinner and supper in one. This is the social meal of the day. At its close, the table is no sooner cleared than the family assembles for prayers; this has been the custom for years in the wanderings of these people. The hour of prayer over, the members of the family retire to their several quarters to enjoy their well-earned night's rest.
The complaint has often been made that the Boers keep their houses untidy, unfloored, and poorly lighted. We must not forget, however, that a house in the country of the Boers is usually the work of the owner's own hands. Such a house was erected under extreme difficulty in a country recently frequented by wild beasts and still wilder barbarians.
Whether we find it located beside some beautiful stream, or standing upon some barren, desolate plain, or nestled under a steep hillside in some lonely and almost inaccessible kloof among the mountains, we may feel sure that it was erected without the aid of skilled labor, and that only the roughest material, found on or near its site, was used in its construction.
It must be remembered that beams and timbers are not to be found ready cut and prepared for the builder's hands. Those that the Boers used to construct their houses had to be brought from very distant points and at an enormous expense.
The extreme difficulty in obtaining heavy timbers made it necessary to change the shapes of the houses somewhat from the most approved plan of dwellings. Necessity is the mother of invention; and the Dutch Boers, in accordance with the trite saying, "Cut your coat to fit your cloth," erected their houses to fit the timbers they were able to procure. They had to content themselves with small rooms, and deny themselves the luxury of a broad spreading roof.
Window frames and the glass to fit them were for years almost unobtainable by such settlers as located themselves north of the Orange and Vaal rivers. In many of the houses the windows were not only few in number, but exceedingly small, often seeming like mere shot holes.
The Dutch farmer has been called slow, and he no doubt is slow; for he belongs to a race not noted for its swiftness of thought or action. For generations his ancestors have lived in the wilds of Africa, and such surroundings have not tended to quicken the nature of the average farmer. Yet with all his moderation the Boer makes an excellent pioneer.
The towns in the Transvaal are as primitive in their way as the houses. In most instances they are mere villages; others are barely more than hamlets, which remind one of some of the drier portions of Holland and Germany.
A town in the Transvaal has generally a square in the center. This is usually the site for the church. There is generally one main street, on which one finds the hotel, several taverns, and a store or two.
The town has usually rather a squalid look. Evidently neither time nor money is ever wasted in mere external ornament. Utility seems to be the plan of life. The one thought of the practical Boer is not, Is it beautiful? but, Is it useful?
In the building of Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, the Boers have had some thought of the future. It has a situation in a basinlike hollow on a plateau some forty-five hundred feet above sea level. While so fortunate as to have a mild climate, Pretoria is subject to great and sudden changes of temperature, which are most trying to people of weak lungs or of a rheumatic constitution. Frequent hailstorms of great violence are a peculiar feature of the climate. These affect the temperature to such a degree that a hot day is often followed by a dismal, chilly night.
Pretoria, as the seat of government, has quite a dignity of its own, and with the forty-five hundred or more people within its limits has quite an imposing air of grandeur. It has broad streets, spacious squares, and many fine architectural features. There are few houses as yet upon its broad streets. The square has the usual features, the church and the residences of the chief magistrate, the lawyers, judges, and merchants. The center of the square is a paradise for wayfaring horses, for it is their favorite grazing ground.
The inhabitants of Pretoria, warned by experience, and knowing the value of water, have caused plenty of it to be conveyed into their town. So plentiful is the supply that it not only irrigates the flourishing gardens but runs in streams through the streets. Notwithstanding these streams may be very refreshing to look at, they must be a source of annoyance to the pedestrian, who would prefer to walk dry-shod through the streets.
On all sides may be seen hedges of roses. The weeping willow trees, which are characteristic of all towns in the Transvaal, seem to be, if possible, still more numerous here.
Provisions are exceedingly dear, except such as are native to the soil. In consequence, while the Boers have the actual necessaries of life, they find it impossible to secure the comforts and the refinement that the average Englishman can obtain at home.
Potchefstroom bears a strong resemblance to Pretoria. The Boers, in laying out the city, planned it on so large a scale that it is rather a difficult matter correctly to estimate its extent.
Here we find the great open grass-covered space, the rose hedges, and rows of weeping willows lining either side of the narrow grass-grown roads with their well-worn cart ruts.
Many writers have given interesting accounts of the home life of the Boers. Mr. Burchell, a traveler, tells us that he met with great hospitality, not only from the wealthy farmers, but from the poorest and humblest laborers. They carried this hospitality to such an extent as to manifest a readiness and a willingness to open their doors to every hungry and belated traveler that appealed for help and shelter.
On one occasion he was the guest of a farmer of the middle class. The house had a bleak and exposed situation, and there was little about it to indicate either art or culture. This house, which was built upon a broad level space bounded by rugged mountains, had one large room, which occupied the main part of the house. The floor was made of mud, and the solitary window with its broken panes showed very plainly the scarcity and the costliness of glass.
The main occupation of the Boers is raising wool, and great quantities of this product are exported each year from Cape Town. As a matter of economy the meat of the sheep is consumed for food, and the fat, or tallow, is made into soap.
At the time of Mr. Burchell's visit to one of the Boers, there was a large kettle of boiling soap suspended over the deep and spacious open fireplace, in which a cheerful fire was blazing. This open fireplace occupied one end of the main building, the bedrooms occupied the other. A door in the wall at the back led into the kitchen. Near the fireplace was a small window, kept closely covered by means of a wooden shutter. This was the only protection from the cold wind; for the window had neither sash nor glass.
Near the glazed window in the main room of the house was a small table, and on it stood the little old-fashioned copper urn, which was almost constantly in use.
On opposite sides of this table were placed ordinary wooden chairs. These were for the master and mistress. Several chairs and benches and a good-sized dining table were ranged about the room. Upon a shelf lay a large Bible and a few other books.
The labor of the farm was performed by a man slave and a few Hottentots. The work in the kitchen and about the house was superintended by the mistress, with a black slave and a Hottentot girl to assist her.
There were three daughters in the family. These were under the instruction of a tutor, a native of Holland, who had lived for nearly thirty years in Cape Colony. He had been an inmate of this family for several months. He could speak quite fluently in English and French, and seemed well able to instruct his pupils for the positions they would occupy in life.
It is no uncommon thing to find teachers of this description scattered over the country. They generally traverse the colony and remain stationed at each house for a period of from a half to a whole year. During this time such teachers agree to instruct their pupils in reading, writing, and arithmetic,—in fact, to finish their education.
The head of the family where Mr. Burchell visited employed his time in rearing cattle. For the disposing of his stock he depended upon the butcher's agent. Such a person is sent by his employer in Cape Town to travel through the grazing districts to select and purchase such cattle as he may deem best. For these cattle he does not pay money, but gives notes or drafts signed by his employer, and bearing an official stamp to indicate their genuineness. Such drafts are considered as good as money, and can be converted into cash by the grazier, or he can tender them in payment to his neighbors.
The inland trade connected with Cape Town was in earlier times a matter of great risk and inconvenience. This was owing to its remote situation at the extremity of the country and to the miserable condition of the roads leading to it. The barren condition of the soil and the lack of good pasturage in the section about the town was a matter of serious inconvenience to the Dutch farmers.
It was the custom for those residing at a great distance to undertake the journey but once in the course of a year. The vehicles on such an occasion resembled very much a traveling menagerie. In addition to the principal members of the family, the poultry, goats, sheep, dogs, monkeys, and other animals reminded the stranger, looking at the motley array, of Noah and the animals that entered the ark. As a matter of protection, and for the purpose of procuring game for food during the journey, a musket or two were carried by the farmer and his aids.
The wagon conveying this mixed load was drawn by a train of at least eight, often ten, or even sixteen, oxen. These, with the enormously long whip of the driver, and the scantily clothed figure of the little Hottentot who led the foremost pair, made a most curious and amusing sight for the stranger visiting the country. The driver's seat was considered a post of honor; the office of leading the oxen was considered a most degrading one, fit only for a Hottentot or a slave.
Between Cape Town and the cultivated farming sections lie extensive sandy plains. These are commonly called the Cape Downs. They are marked by numberless road and wagon ruts in every direction. The soil of these downs, which is composed of loose white sand resting on a bed of clay, is capable of supporting only a few stunted shrubs and coarse rushes. Here and there are scattered a few solitary huts.
Owing to the general barren nature of the country, travelers find no inducement to remain more than a day at Cape Town. After a journey that has perhaps lasted twenty days, during which the barren downs have been crossed, the farmers frequently unyoke their oxen at Salt River, so as to be in readiness to enter the town the next morning at break of day. In this way they frequently dispose of their produce, procure such articles as they may require, and set out immediately upon the homeward journey in the course of a single day.
Now that the South African Republic is so well supplied with railways, no doubt even the primitive and slow-moving Boer will in time avail himself of the advantages of modern ways, and the old time customs will cease to exist, just as in our own country traveling by stagecoach is a thing of the past, except over some of the mountain roads not yet crossed by railways.