Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1900-01-11
LIFE IN A BOER HOME.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE TRANS.
vAAL PEOPLE.

A Young Eng1ishman's Description of
One Family, Which, 1t Is to Be Hoped,
Is Not True of A11-Contemptf for APP
pearances and Cleanliness.
A young Englishman gives an inter-
esting description of his experiences in
| a Boer home in South Africa. He had
| just recovered from fever which had
confined him for time to hospital,
and being acquainted with young
Boer in Pretoria, he obtained letters of
| introduction to the family and went
out to the homestead to get built up.
| He says:
Jacobus Grundling and his family re-
ceived me the entrance of their home.
| The deadly apathy which peryades a
Boer household is not easily disturbed.
I was stared at for few moments,
| asked a few questions, and the only
| memberof the family who spokea little
| English told me in a shamefaced sort
of way, as if he were saying something
discreditable, that his brother had once
| told him that he liked me, but the rest
| of the family contented themselves
with shaking hands.
| This over I was invited inside. The
homestead, like Boer farm houses, is
| stuck in the open veldt, and built close
to stream, bounded on one side by
| garden, in which grew orange, lemon,
| citron, peach, apple, and pear trees. The
| houses are built of red bricks, baked in
the sun, the spaces between the bricks
being filed with mud, which to keep
from drying to dust has to be contln-
ually moistened with water.
That of Mr.. Grundling would not
have looked SO repulsive had the roof
been matched. AS the Boer, however
has no eye for the picturesque, he finds
| galvanized corrugated iron an admira-
| BILE substitute. But if the outside was
not prepossessing, the inside was alb
solutely forbidding. Wood is scarce in
the Transvaal, so the houses are never
more than one story high, which does
away with staircases.
| Another feature of home life for
which these people entertain a most
lofty contempt is furniture and domes-
tic crockery. All the furniture belong
| ing to mine host was Enthusiastically of
| home origin; the stool on which l was
invited to seat myself while partaking
of Boer national beverage, coffee, hav-
ing only two short legs. Cups and
saucers, as we'll as knives and forks,
being unknown among these primitive
people, 1 was handed my coffee in
basin. I should have liked little
milk, but milk, although the Beers are
pastoral race, is practically unknown
in the Transvaal, and sugar they despise.
|. To describe one Boer family is to de-
scribe all Boer families. There are, be-
lieve, about 10000 adult men in the
Transvaal, and from what have seen
| of them they so resemble each other as
to convey the impression that they all
| belong to one family.
There are several young men in the
household of Jacobus Grundling, tall,
| and powerfully made, with long matted
boards and unkempt hair, and all incon-
ceivably dirty. They all wear dirty
corduroy trousers, very short Jackets,
| which make them look like gigantic
| boys, no collars, dirty ragged flannel
| shirts, billycock hats, and veldshoons,
| which are shoes made of untanned
| leather, and, like the furniture, of home
| manufacture.
The average weight of a Boer young
lady is 100 pounds, increasing to 200
and upward as they get older. Every
man forms his own ideal of beauty, and
| the Beers signifies his in one expressive
word-bulk.
A Boer lady seeking to win the af-
| fections of an American would proba-
bly, endeavor to keep her face and
| hands clean, but, as all Boer lover
cares about is the weight avoirdupois,
she can afford to be as untidy as the
most slovenly of her European sisters.
| There was only one bedstead in the
house, and this / occupied. | had no
conjunction in doing this, as l soon
found that the Beers do not undress on
retiring for the night. A few skins are
sufficient for their wants.
l experienced so many novel sensa-
| lions during my stay, that even when l
discovered couple Of collins under my
| bed one night when endeavor1pg to
eject one of the wretched Transvaal
dogs which had taken shelter there, [
was not surprised. 1t seems that wood
| being scarce in the Transvaal most
| families keep few collins in stock for
emergencies.
THE OLDEST OF RELIGIONS.