[42] Wildebeest = the gnu.
[43] Vley = depression with water.
[44] Hartebeest = an antelope.
[45] There seems some tendency in South African climate and conditions of life to produce this physical type, as it is often closely approximated to by the descendants of British settlers. The South Africans as a whole appear to be larger, and not quite so closely knit as the European folk.
[46] (Footnote added in 1901.) This passage was written ten years ago, and printed as it stands five years ago. It possibly throws some light on the success of the Republicans in the conflict with the British Empire to-day.
[47] We are, of course, speaking generally.
[48] That this, and more especially the absence of excitement and change, and not anything racial, is the cause of the large size and great weight, sometimes running to over 300 pounds, of Boer women, is certain, as their descendants, when leading the ordinary modern life, are in no way remarkable for size or weight.
[49] Dag = "Day."
[50] Dassie = coney.
[51] Travelling in the north of the Colony along the banks of the Orange in our childhood, we were once compelled to pass the night in the house of a very wealthy farmer. At bedtime we were shown into a room with three bedsteads. In one slept the father, mother, and the young infant, in another the grandmother and two of the younger children; in a large four-poster in the other corner were two girls of fourteen and sixteen and a youth of nineteen. On this bed we were asked to lie down, and about one o'clock our company was added to by a huge Boer bull-dog, which lay at the foot, and successfully, even for a child, prevented sleep.