Thoughts on South Africa

by Olive Schreiner

The good wife politely extends her hand to you, asks you to be seated, and you take your place on the wooden sofa. Except the tables and chairs, the room contains little or nothing. On the wall may be a rough gun-rack, containing half a dozen guns, from the old clumsy flint-lock gun of a century ago—which may have brought down many an elephant and lion in the old days and defended the lives of wives and children—to the most elegant modern Mauser or Martini-Henry. But the guns are more often kept in the bedroom, on the wall near the head of the bed.

One thing, however, is never missing. Either in a little closed window with a crochet cloth thrown over it, on the housemother's little table, on the centre table, or in a little cupboard in the wall, is always to be found the great family Bible. It holds a place altogether unique in the economy of the Boer life. It is not alone that on its front pages are to be found solemnly inscribed the names of the ancestors, the births, deaths, or marriages of his children, and often a brief record of the date of the most momentous events in his own or his family's history; it is not alone that for generations this book has represented the sole tie between his solitary and often nomadic family and the intellectual life of culture of mankind; it is not alone that any culture or knowledge he possesses, other than that gained from the material world about him, has been all spelled out of its pages, but the visible external volume forms the Lares and Penates of his household, the sacred central point.

It is treated with respect; no other book is ever laid upon it; it is opened reverentially; it is carried wherever he wanders; it is consulted not merely as a moral, but also a material guide. The pages are solemnly opened and the finger brought down upon a passage, which is spelled out, and recovery or death of a child, and even such matters as the whereabouts of lost cattle, are believed to be indicated by its contents; as Enoch Arden's wife believed, when she brought her finger down on the passage about the palm-tree, that it indicated Enoch's death.

After we have been seated for a few moments the other members of the family will troop in, one by one, and shake hands, and seat themselves on the chairs round the room; nine or ten children between the ages of eighteen and two years, and perhaps a married son and daughter-in-law, and an old grandmother, who has her own elbow-chair near the window. For the Boer ideal of family life is patriarchal, and two or three generations are often housed under one roof. Presently the eldest daughter makes coffee in the urn, a little Kaffir maid bringing in a small, brazier of live coals to place under it. Then coffee is poured out in cups, or basins, and handed round to each person.

By the time the coffee has been drunk, the afternoon is beginning to grow old; the heat is rapidly lessening, and the soft evening breeze beginning to stir the air. The farmer lights his pipe, and invites you to fill yours from his large tobacco-bag, made of cony's skin or little kid's. Then he invites you to accompany him to the kraals, towards which from different points on the plain the flocks may already be seen tending. Then comes the busy and delightful hour—sunset on an African farm. Everywhere there is bustle and stir; in the cow-kraals the calves are bleating and putting their noses through the gate to get through to their mothers as they are being milked; and one by one, the sheep and the goats are being counted in at the gates of the great kraals.

The Kaffir maids are busy preparing the churn for the fresh milk, and lighting the kitchen fire for supper. The children are romping outside, inspired by the cool evening wind; even the old grandmother seats herself on the back doorstep to watch the stir, and to see the pink sunset slowly deepen into grey as the night comes down. The dark gathers quickly, and soon the whole family are again gathered in the great front room.

On really old-fashioned farms a little Kaffir maid then comes in with a small tub of hot water and a cloth, and washes the feet of old and young, after which the family sit down to the evening meal, generally composed of boiled mutton, bread, and coffee. After supper, it is not long before the whole family retire for the night into the small bedrooms opening to the right and left of the sitting-room, and by eight o'clock often the whole household is in bed and asleep, the old Boer dog, stealing softly round the house, being the only creature moving, and the occasional bleating of sheep and goats being the only sounds that break the stillness.

At half-past three or four the next morning, however, you will be early aroused by the sound of bustling and movement. Every one is getting up. The Kaffir maid has already made the fire, and by the time you enter the sitting-room the eldest daughter is already pouring out coffee at the little table, by the light of a candle, although the grey dawn-light is already creeping in at the door.

As soon as he has had his coffee, the Boer with his sons goes out to the kraals to let out the stock. Long before the sun rises the flocks are already wending their way across the plain to their different pastures, with their Kaffir herdsmen behind them.

Then if you be the typical African traveller, anxious to get on his way before the heat of the day rises, you will have another cup of coffee, and bidding good-bye to your hosts, by the time the sun rises you will be already on your way across the plain, and the farm-house with its kraals and dam be already but a small speck behind you.