The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1911-08-11
LIFE ON A BOER FARM
not INVITING FROM AMERICAN
POINT or VIEW.
Norman Traveller Describes the MO-
netony and Dlseomforts she
Found In the Agricultural Re-
eions Of South Africa.

An American woman travelling III
South Africa was detained by hooos
and compelled to spend . month on
Ia Roer farm.
The FIRST nights monotony." sne
writes in Health Culture. was broken
BY the roaring Of ostriches under our
windows. We thought it was a tame
Hon.
Tho farmer and his family lived
chiefly on sour bread and sour
skinned milk. l was therefore hun
cry most OF the time and the ripe
figs hanging in clusters were pretty
ailuring. After pushing back the
skin OF the fig and enjoying the soft
fruit with It's tropical taste | had
refreshing nights sleep, only to awak'
en- in the morning pretty well scared
for my tongue was so swollen ana
black that l could not talk.
The Boer wife laughed and enjoyed
my discontinue and explained that
the skin of the fig had numerous nne
thorns and l had not been careful
to remove 1t when eating.
When l told the farmers wife
that liked buttermilk in quantity
noticed that had a cupful or so given
me, but she threw 1t by the pailful to
the pigs. They were Of far more con-
sequence to her than l, for they would
stay longer with her and were her
familiars. I was not.
Then again, when l was hungry
for butter on my bread, white clam
my substance made from 'sheeptail
fat was handed to me, and could
not allow the farmers wife to see me
culver. She sold her butter in the
village close by at Is cents a pound.
more or less. Sour bread and green
Strawberries (plenty of them) were
considered good enough.
1.-The Boer family was one OF the
wealthiest of their kind. There was
not a ripple of fun or exuberant life
in anything but the 1--we stock. Con
versation was a dead language
known.
The women are mute beings. &C
cepting their destiny with deep
stiffness. The wife gives Of her
strength to the limit. and dies after
giving birth to q dozen or more chill.
dren. to make way for wife number
two, who gives another dozen chill
dren to her country. Her adobe house.
with its dirt door made Of anthill clay
mixed with beef gall, Is a chamber Of
horror to an Amerivan traveller.
1.-THE farmer depends upon his ten
to eighteen children. Of all sizes. to
help him. A Kafhr as an employe
IL indispensable az the wind that
blows. Yet that Kahlr is the hired
man in the mines and elsewhere IN
South Africa. The white man ~ .
day laborer Is general failure. He
cannot be worked In droves like the
Kafiir from the interior. whose Ian
guage, in clicks and vowel sounds. II
hardly human.
THE Boer Is not long lived. One
seldom met an aged Boer Of the old
stock. Dom Paul Kruger, who was
Is years old when he died, was an
exception. Hatred toward the Dit
lander and the lust for gold and power
was what kept the 1lres Of life burn
Ing at white heat within him.
ITO stem the elements alone In At
RIGA takes the stoutest heart. Fevers
assail the discouraged and underfed
home boy. The easily forded streams
become rivers. like swirling Niagaras,
In a few hours and the terrific thun-
derstorms paralyze one sensitive to
electrical influences.
There Is no pretty little. far-od
streak in the sky which the amateur
photographer can catch on his aim.
but the air Is charged with electricity
30 appalling in its violet hued and
deep orange earthbound clouds that
one has to come to complete stand
still whether walking or riding on the
open veldt. so as not to attract the
ribbonlike lightning playing around
him and venting its fury on any NOV
ing object"