The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-08-30
The Dutch Farmer in Africa.

The Dutch farmer or Boer of the int
rior of the Cape Colony may be described
in few words. In every community
there are bad exceptions; and the excep.
tiOns being all that we hear of at a dis
lance, the South African Boer has till
lately been regarded in England as little
better than savage. We must learn to
know his fairer side. The type is un-
changing. AS he was in 1906 in the Col
ony, so he is in 1876 in the republics OF
the interior. He is uncultivated. He is
unprogressive; but he possesses qualities
which even here will be regarded as not
without value. 'He is domestic, but not
gregarious." When he settles he pro-
cures from 5000 to 10000 acres of undu-
lating grass plain. He takes possession
in his wagon with his wife and children,
his scanty furniture, his family Bible,
which is all bis literature, and his sheep
and cattle. He selects spring of water
as site for his house; ten miles, per-
haps, from his nearest neighbor. His
house consists of central hall, with a
kitchen behind it, and three, four, or five
bedrooms opening out of it, all on one
floor He builds kraals for his cattle
He fences in garden which he carefully
irrigates. And so rapid is the growth
in that soil and climate that in four or
five years it will be stocked with oranges,
lemons, citrons, peaches, apricots, figs,
apples, pears, and grape vines. He in
closes fifty or II hundred acres, which he
ploughs and sows with wheat or Indian
corn. His herds and t1ocks multiply
with little effort. If he is ambitious he
adds few ostriches, whose feathers he
sells at Port Elizabeth. Thus he lives in
rude abundance. His boys grow up and
marry; his daughters find husbands, and
when the land is good they remain at his
side. For each new family house is
built few gun.shots from the first A
few more acres are brought under the
plough. A second generation is born.
The old people become the pakiarchs of
the family hamlet. The younger gather
round them at the evening meal, which
is preceded by a long, solemn grace, as
the days work in the morning is COM
menced with psalm. The authority of
age is absolute. The old lady sits in a
chair in the hall, extending her hand to a
guest, but never rising to receive him.
The young generation, trained to obedi
ence, fetch and carry at her command.
The estate produces almost everything
which the family consumes. There is no
haste to get rich. There is no desire of
change. The Boer has few wants but
those which he can himself supply, and
he asks nothing but to be let alone. The
obedience which he expects from his chill
dren he expects equally from his servants.
He is strict Calvinist. The stream of
time, which has carried most of US so far
and fast, has left him anchored on the old
ground. The only knowledge which he
values is contained in his Bible. His no.
lions of things in Heaven and earth are
very much what would have been found
in Scotland in the days of the Covenant.
He is constitutionally republican, yet of
liberty in the modern sense he has no
idea. He considers work the first duty
of man, and habits of work the only fit
ting education. Native questions and all
questions he regards from this point of
view. Without tenderness, without en-
thusiasm, and with the narrowest intel
lectual horizon, he has stubborn practi-
cality we'll suited for the work which he
has chosen as the pioneer of African CIV
Republics.