Thoughts on South Africa

by Olive Schreiner

On a certain morning he asks his father's leave to go visiting; and in the evening, when he has counted in the sheep, and attended to all his duties, or, if the place he intends visiting be at a great distance, earlier in the afternoon, he equips himself in his best attire, the studs are in the shirt, the gauze is arranged around his hat, he puts the white handkerchief in his breast-pocket, where, as he approaches his destination, it can easily be pulled up and made to hang out. According to his means will be the quality and smartness of his suit, but his spurs will always be made to shine so that you can see your face in them, and if he has no ring he will sometimes borrow one from his sister or grandmother, which he forces on to his little finger. His horse has been carefully polished up for days, if not for months. If it be what it should be, it has very high action, raising its feet and playing its head as soon as the rein is drawn in, while it is all-important it should be a stallion—one with black body and white feet being absolutely ideal for this purpose—a man who went out courting on a mare would be the ridicule of the country-side.

There is much admiration and interest lavished on himself and his horse as he rides away from the homestead, the children having never seen him so accoutred before. Everyone is aware what his object is, his destination having been generally imparted to his sister or brother, who are sure to repeat it to the mother, but as a rule no direct questions are asked. According as that destination is distant, five, fifteen, twenty, or thirty or more miles, he has to time the hour of his departure, which is so arranged that just as the sun is setting and the sheep are coming home to the kraal he arrives in sight of the house he visits. The children or little Kaffirs who are playing outside see him from the kraal, or someone catches sight of his approach from the house, and the cry of "Daar kom mense!" (There come people!) is raised, and the news flies round. The house-mother, who has perhaps been sitting at the kitchen door to watch the maids take up the skins that have been nailed out to dry, and the daughter or daughters, who have been giving out rations or standing about in the cool, retire into the house. It is quickly to be seen as the young man approaches what manner of visitor he is; and the mother seats herself in her elbow-chair, while the girls retire precipitately to their chamber to prepare themselves. Then the young man rides round first to the kraals to meet the father, who, if he feel well-disposed towards him, advances slowly to meet him; he is always asked into the house; but in rare cases, where there is some strong objection against him or his family, he is not invited to off-saddle, and in that case he is bound to leave the same evening and find a night's lodging elsewhere; but usually, though his advances may not be desired by the parents, he is hospitably entertained; and the courtship is seldom arrested at this early stage. When his horse has been off-saddled he is invited into the front room, and if his visit be much approved of his steed may be offered a feed of mealies or oats, an indication which he may accept as most favourable.

When he has seated himself in the front room, the house-mother in her elbow-chair proceeds to inquire after the health of his relatives, and if she now meets him for the first time inquires the number of his brothers and sisters, and questions him gravely on other points of personal and family history of the same nature, which is considered a polite attention. There are from time to time slight creakings of the door of the bedroom in which the daughters are attiring themselves, as one or other attempts to peep through the crack in the boards, or to hold it slightly ajar. If there be two of marriageable age, they both put on their best new gowns and tie fresh handkerchiefs round their throats; and if they be so fortunate as to remember to bring the cocoa-nut oil into the room, they heavily dress their hair with it. Just as the Kaffir maid is bringing the lights into the front room they appear, and shake hands with the stranger, who silently rises and extends his fingers, and they both proceed about their evening duty, preparing the coffee and supper; but in doing so both find it necessary to return frequently to look for something in the little wall cupboard in the front room, or to fetch some article from the sleeping apartments which open out of it. The young man sits on the sofa and turns his riding-whip round and round, answering the house-mother's questions or sitting silent, but keenly noting the differing figures or other points of resemblance or difference between the sisters. By-and-by, when the family gather round the supper table, the elder girls, more especially the eldest, wait on them; the children keep their eyes fixed on the stranger as they eat, and the young man looks into his plate and eats silently, or answers questions from the house-father, but notes all that takes place. When supper is ended the family return to the front room; and the young children troop off to bed one by one. Then comes the hour of trial if the young man be bashful and unused to courtship: for having made up his mind which daughter he desires to pay his attention to, it is now necessary he should request the parents' permission to sit up with her. If either the parents or the young lady object, which latter is seldom the case, there is a refusal and the courtship is nipped in this, its very first phase: if they consent the mother frequently gets out, or allows the daughter to get out, a couple of tallow candles, which are to be burnt during the night. Then, when the rest of the family have retired, the maiden of his choice comes in and seats herself beside him on the sofa. From time to time there are creakings at the different bedroom doors that open into the front room, as the children or other members of the family get out of bed to peep through at them, and the young maiden may even suggest their retiring to the back dining-room if there be one; but after a while the whole household fall asleep, the tallow candle burns dimly on the table, and the youth and maiden pass the long night seated side by side and conversing, the girl generally making coffee near morning, that they may keep themselves awake. About four, or a little earlier, she gives him a final cup, and he saddles his horse and rides away; and when the rest of the family rise he is already gone. To be found there when the sun rose would be a breach of etiquette. If the youth and maiden have approved of one another they have made a promise to exchange rings, or have actually exchanged them, and have made an appointment for his next coming in a week or ten days' time. If either has disliked the other, there is no necessity for him to return, and in no case is either bound by this first visit. He may "ride round" and sit up with half-a-dozen maidens in succession, and this is not uncommonly done, though the young man who "rides round" too much runs the risk of acquiring a bad name, as it is supposed the girls have refused him, or that he is not serious in his intentions. If all goes satisfactorily, he returns again in a week or ten days' time, and sits up once more. And it is now necessary he should think very gravely of the matter, for the third or fourth time he comes, instead of riding away before dawn, it is understood that he will wait till the parents have risen, and he and the maiden of his choice will ask the parents' consent to the marriage; and it is also an understood thing that he would not have come the fourth time had his own parents not consented. The elders are now formally asked to give their consent, this part of the proceedings being purely formal, as had all the parents not concurred, matters would probably never have reached this stage. The wedding is supposed to take place about three weeks after this, the ceremony of "ou'ers vraag" (parents' asking): and it is either determined to fetch the minister from the nearest village where one is to be found, or a journey is undertaken to the spot where he resides. The young couple generally, for a few weeks at least after the marriage, remain in the house of the bride's parents, though it is a matter of arrangement with which family they shall permanently reside, the rule being that the man lives on his father's farm unless there is good reason it should be otherwise. The wedding is always at the house of the bride's parents, and accompanied by such rejoicings as their wealth and the size of their house allow; dancing is kept up all night, large quantities of mutton, milk-tart, and boiled dried fruit and coffee being served up. About two o'clock the bride is taken to the bridal chamber and undressed by the bridesmaids; the bridegroom is brought to the door by the best man, who takes the key out of the door, if it have one, and gives it to the bridegroom, who retires, locking the door on the inside; and the dancing is kept up till after daylight, when the guests betake themselves to their carts and wagons and return to their homes, often a day's journey distant. Then the great event of the Boer's life is ended. After a while, it may be he takes his bride home to his father's house. They share a room often with other members of the family, and the girl takes her place as an elder daughter in the household, and, especially if there be no grown daughter, makes coffee, gives out the rations, and attends to the maids. After a while, perhaps, when she has had her first or second child, and the young couple are of an age to take care of themselves, they remove into two small disconnected rooms of their own built on at the end of the farm-house, or a little way off; and it is not uncommon, as sons and daughters grow up, to have three or four of these small dwellings on one farm; though some of the married children almost invariably remain in the large house with the parents. Sometimes, after a few years have passed, the young couple leave the parental home altogether, and become part of the band of trekkers who are ceaselessly moving North in search of new pastures. As the years go by the bride becomes the buxom matron of twenty-five or twenty-six with half-a-dozen children, and she not only has her own coffee table and chair and stove, but, as her eldest daughter soon reaches an age at which she can make coffee, and attend to the active duties of the household, the mother begins to sit sewing permanently in her elbow-chair as her mother and grandmother did before her, and the new generation repeats the story of the old.

In the old days (and still to-day wherever in the far northern territories the old conditions subsist, and the new have not rushed in) little or no instruction was of necessity given to the children. Their mothers or grandmothers taught them the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer in Holland Dutch, as it had been taught to them, and related to them some little Bible stories; and occasionally some broken-down soldier or wandering tramp, who turned up, was hired for a few pounds a year to instruct the children. Part of his occupation consisted in treading the wool down in the bales at shearing time, and performing other kindred duties, and if he was seldom treated with much respect he more seldom deserved it. It was in the remote past, as it is in the remote northern districts to-day, an uncommon thing to find an up-country Boer who could read and write fluently, or add up a sum in simple addition exactly; and the flood of education which the exertions of the clergy, and the march of South African civilization is pouring in on them, is an innovation mainly of the last twenty or thirty years, which, rapidly as it is advancing, has not yet made itself felt among the quite primitive portions of the population.

(It may be superfluous, but it may here be convenient to reiterate, that in describing the Boer, we are not referring to the nineteenth-century descendants of the Dutch-Huguenots, but to the Taal-speaking seventeenth-century men of the same blood, who largely populate our remote colonial up-country districts, but who are perhaps found most perfectly preserved in the remote portions of their own states. These folk have as little resemblance to the nineteenth-century French Dutchman of the Bovenland as the smooth-faced young clerk, who meekly measures you a yard of ribbon or velvet in a London shop, has to a wild Highland clansman, though he may have the true Macgregor or Campbell blood within his veins. Not only the virtues but the vices of the one form an antithesis to those of the other. There are thousands of cultured and intellectual English-speaking descendants of the Dutch-Huguenots, who not only have no trace of the virtue of the true Boer nor of his failings, but who know nothing of him and have never drunk a cup of coffee nor passed a night in a Boer farm-house.)

The children grew up with a great respect for the Bible that lay on the little table, but seldom with the power of studying it; with a knowledge that God made the world, that Noah and his sons were saved in the Ark, that the Jews were ordered to destroy the Canaanites; and that they, the Boers, were the chosen people, and South Africa the Promised Land: but of complex modern intellectual knowledge they possessed little, nor in their quiet and peaceful life did they feel the need of any.

To the outsider this life of the primitive Boer may appear monotonous and blank. But it has aspects of beauty, and rich compensations of its own.

Is it nothing, that he should rise morning after morning, in the sweet grey dawn, when the heavy brains of the card-player and the theatre-goer are still wrapped in their first dull sleep, and watch the first touch of crimson along his hills—a crimson fairer and more rich than that of any sunset-sky—while the stars fade slowly up above; that he should stand, drinking his coffee on the "stoep" in the sharp exhilarating air, as the earth grows pinker, till after a while, as he stands at his kraal gate and watches his sheep file out, he sees all his plain turn gilt in the sunlight? Is there no charm in those long peaceful days, when hours count as moments; when one may hear the flies buzz out in the sunshine, and the bleat of a far-off sheep sounds loud and clear; when upon the untaxed brain, through the untaxed nerves of sense, every sight and sound trace themselves with delicious clearness and merely to live and hear the flies hum—is a pleasure? Is there no charm in those evenings when after the long still day the farm breaks into its temporary life and bustle, and the sheep stream bleating home, and the cows come hurrying to the little calves who put their heads between the bars and over the kraal gate; and the Kaffirs come up to the house for the milking, and the children and dogs play about, and in the great still sky the stars come out one by one; while there is still light enough from the clear west for the house-mother to finish her seam of sewing, as she sits at the back-door? Is it nothing that the competition, ambition, worry and fret, which compose the greater part of men's lives in cities, are hardly known here?—that with untired nerves and untaxed brain man and woman may sink to sleep at night, and in the course of long years hardly know a night of broken rest or wakeful torture? Are this man's pleasures smaller or less rational, when he breaks in his young horses or rejoices over the birth of a dozen white-nosed calves, than those of the man who finds delight in watching the roll of the dice at Monte Carlo, or who quivers with excitement as he determines whether he shall put his coin on this square or that? Is he not a more rational and respectable object when with his wife and children behind him, he drives his wagon with his eight horses through his own veld on his way to church, than the man, who sometimes with the care of an empire on his shoulders, with all the opportunities for culture which unlimited wealth and unlimited opportunity can bestow at the end of this nineteenth century, and with almost unlimited opportunity for the exercise of the intellect in large fields for human benefit, yet finds life's noblest recreation in driving round and round in an enclosed park, with four horses, and a lacquey behind with a trumpet, and a red coat,—like a four years' child showing off his go-cart! Is not his life, not merely more rational, but more rich in enjoyment than that of worldlings, over-gorged with the products of a material civilization? For, it may never be overlooked, that the intensity of human enjoyment does not vary as the intensity of the stimuli; but with the sensitiveness and power of response of the nerves concerned. As the youth obtains a more enjoyable exhilaration from his first glass of wine than the drunkard from his bottle, and the child from his sweetmeat than a gourmand from his dinner—so our African Boer, in common with all who lead a severely simple life, knows probably more of intense enjoyment than is compassed by a hundred men seeking always for new sensations and new stimulations. Is not the human soul a string which may soon be strung so tight and struck so often that it refuses to vibrate at all and ends by hanging limp; and the human life is a very small cup, where all beyond a certain amount poured into it runs to waste? Through the course of a long life, the man who employs himself on the race-course or on the Stock Exchange, and the woman who passes from theatre and ball-room to race-course and hunting-field in search of enjoyment, probably never truly enjoys what the Boer feels as he looks out over his door in the early morning, with his coffee cup in his hand, and sees the grey dawn breaking across his own land; nor knows what the Boer woman knows when she sits peaceful on the step of the door with her baby sucking at her bosom, and sees the sunshine shimmering over the bushes and landscape she lives with. These things the worn dwellers in cities do not know of.

It may be asserted that our appraisement of the joys of Boer life is made from the standpoint of the much-cultured person whose highly active nervous system responds to a small stimulus, that in reality the South African Boer cares no more for the blue sky over his head than if it were a piece of blue rag pinned out above him; that the mysteries of the mighty daily cycle of nature which passes before his eyes, and which he has to watch whether he will or no, are no more to him than the lighting and putting out of candles; that the red sand and the brown stones of the kopjes and the little karroo bushes beneath which he will at last sleep have no value for him than as a substance he can walk over, build his house with, or give his stock to eat; and that Nature, with her complex and subtle speech, has no power of reaching his heavy consciousness.

But this is not true.