Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-07-04
ON A BoER FARM.
Not Very Inviting Existence From an
American Point of View.

Not Very Inviting Existence From an
American Point of View.
An American woman travelling in
South Africa was detained by floods
and compelled to spend a month on a
Boer farm.
THE first nights monotony," she
writes in Health Culture, was bro
ken by the roaring of ostriches under
our window. We thought 1t was a
tame lion.
THE farmer and his family lived
chiefly on sour bread and sour SKIM
med milk. / was therefore hungry
most of the time and the ripe figs
hanging in clusters were pretty allur-
Ing After pushing back the skin of
the fig and enjoying the soft fruit
with it's tropical taste had a refresh
ing nights sleep, only to awaken in
the morning pretty we'll scared, for
my tongue was so swollen and black
that l could not talk.
THE Roer wife laughed and enjoy
ed my discontinue and explained that
the skin of the fig had numerous fine
thorns and l had not been careful to
remove it when eating.
when l told the farmers wife
that / liked buttermilk in quantity l
noticed that had a cupful or so CIV
en- me, but she threw it by the pailful
to the pigs They were of far more
consequence to her than l, for they
would stay longer with her and were
her familiars. / was not
Then, again, when l was hungry
for butter on my bread, white
clammy substance made from sheep
tail fat" was handed to me, and Il
could not allow the farmers wife to-
see me quiver. She sold her butter
in the village close by at seventy-hVe
cents a pound, more or less. Sour
bread and green strawberries (plen-
ty of them) were considered good
enough.
This Boer family was one OF the
wealthiest of their kind. There was
not a ripple of fun or exuberant lie
in anything but the live stock. con-
yersation was a dead language-un-
known.
THE women are mute beings, ac-
cepting their destiny with deep stili-
ness. The wife gives of her strength
to the limit, and dies after giving
birth to a dozen or more children 10
make way for wife number two VINO
gives another dozen children to her
country. Her adobe house, with It's
dirt floor made Of anthill clay mixed
with beef gall, Is a chamber or nor
ror to an American traveller.
The farmer depends upon his ten
to eighteen children, Of all sizes, TO
help him. A 'Kaftir as an employee Is
undependable as the wind that blows'
Yet that Kaffir is the hired man IN
the mines and elsewhere IN south
Africa. The white man as day Ia
borer is a general failure. He can
not be worked in droves like the kaf-
fir from the interior, whose language,
in clicks and vowel sounds, Is 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 eX-
ceptiOn. Hatred toWaru the Sitiaiu
er and the lust for gold and power
was what kept the fires of life burn
ing at white heat within him.
ITO stem the elements alone IN Al
rica takes the stoutest heart. FeVerS
assail the discouraged and underted
home boy. The easily forded streams
become rivers, like swirling Nlagaras
in a few hours and the terrihc thun-
derstorms paralyze one sensitive to
electrical influences. =.
There is no pretty little. far off
streak in the sky which the amateur
photographer can catch on his film,
but the air is charged with electricity
so appalling in its violet hued and
deep orange earth-bound clouds that
one has to come to a 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 moV-
ing object"