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.