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.