Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1911-09-28
LIFE ON A BOER FARM
NOT INVITING FROM AMERICAN
POINT OF VIEW.
Woman Traveller Describes the Mo-
notony and Discomforts Sho
Found In the Agricultural Re-
gions Of South Africa,


An American woman travelling In
South Africa was detained by floods
and compelled to spend n month on
n Eoer farm.
The first nights monotony," she
writes In Health Culture, was broken
by the roaring of ostriches under our
windows. We thought 1t was Il tame
lion.
The farmer and his family lived
chiefly on sour bread and sour
skinned milk. was therefore hun
cry most of the time and the ripe
ngs hanging In clusters were pretty
alluring. After pushing back the
skin OF the fig and enjoying the soft
truit with It's tropical taste | had
refreshing nights sleep. only to awak-
en- III the morning pretty we'll scared,
Tor my tongue was SO swollen and
black that | could not talk.
The Bocr wife laughed and enjoyed
my discontinue and explained that
the skin of the iig had numerous fine
thorns and | had not been careful
to remove 1t when eating.
When told the farmers wife
that | liked buttermilk In quantity l
noticed that had a cupful or so given
Inc, 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
faniiliars was not.
Then again. when | ~, hungry
for butter on my bread. n white clam
my substance made from 'shceptail
fat was handed to me, and | could
not allow the farmers wife to see me
CULVER. She sold her butter I'm the
village close by at rs cents pound. .
more or less. Sour bread and green
strawberries (plcnty OF them) were
considered good enough.
The HOer family was one OF the
wealthiest of their kind. There was
not ripple of fun or cxuberant life
I'm anything but the live stock. Con-
yersatiOn was a dead language-un-
known
The women are mute 6eings. ac-
cepCing their destiny with deep
stiffness. The wife gives :.r Ger
strength to the limit, and dies alter
giving birth to n dozen or more chill
dron. TO make way for wife number
two. who gives another dozen chill
drcn to her country. Her adobe house.
with It's dirt floor made OF anthill clay
mixed with beef gall. is cha,IDer OF
horror TO IN Amcrivan traveller.
The farmer depends upon his ten
10 eighteen children. OF all sizes, to
help him 4 Kafilr MS an cmploye
Is undcpendablc as the wind that
blows. Yet that Kaflir Is the hired
man in the mines and elsewhere In
South Africa The white man az n
day Iaborer Is Il general failure. lie
cannot be worked In drOycs like the
KaiIr from the interior, whose Ian
guage. I'm clicks and vowel sounds, Is
hardly human.
THE IIocr ig not long IIv"i One
seldom met an aged IiOcr OF the Old
stock. Dom Paul Kruger. who was
rs years old when he died, was an
exception. Hatred toward the Uit-
lander and the lust for gold and power
was what kept the fires OF life burn.
ing at white heat within hin.
rica takes the GlOutest heart. Fevers
assail the discouraged and underfed
home boy. Tho easily fordcd streams
become rivers. like swirling NIagaras,
I'm a few hours and the terrific thun.
derstOrms pnralyZc one sensitive to
electrical Influences.
There Is no pretty Hiilc, fer.or
strpak jn the gky which IhC amateur
photographer can catch On his film,
but the air Is charged with electricity
80 appalling in It's violet hucd and
deep orange carthbound clouds that
one has 10 come to n complete stand
still whether walking or riding on tho
open vcldt. so MS not to attract the
ribbonlikc lightning playing around
him and venting It's fury on any NOV.
Ing object"