Dewey County advocate. [volume] (Timber Lake, S.D.) 1910-1913, 1911-11-03
LIFE ON A BOER FARM
NOT INVITING, FROM AMERICAN
POINT OF VIEW.
Woman Traveller Describes the Mo
notony and DIscomforts she
Found In the Agricultural Re-
gIons Of South Africa.

An American woman travelling in
South Africa was detained by floods
and compelled to spend month on
Roer farm.
THE first nights monotony," she
writes In Health Culture. was broken
by the roaring of ostriches under our
windows. We thought 1t was tame
lion.
THE 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
alluring. After pushing back the
skin Of the fig and enjoying the soft
fruit with its tropical taste had a
refreshing nights sleep, only to awak-
en- in the morning pretty well scared.
for my tongue was so swollen and
black that l could not talk.
The Boer wife laughed and enjoyed
my discontinue and explained that
the skin of the fig had numerous fine
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 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. l 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 l 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 live stock. Con
versation was dead language--un
known.
1.-The women are mute beings, &C
cepting their destiny with a deer
stiffness. The wife gives Of hel
strength to the limit, and dies aftel
giving birth to a 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 floor made Of anthill clay
mixed with beef gall. is chamber Of
horror to an Amerivan traveller.
1.-The farmer depends upon his ter
to eighteen children. Of all sizes, t
help him. A Kaffir as an employs
is indispensable as the wind thai
blows. Yet that Kafir is the hired
man In the mines and elsewhere II
South Africa. The white man as 8
day laborer is general failure. He
cannot be worked in droves like the
Kaffir 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 ole
stock. Dom Paul Kruger, who was
rs years old when he died. was ar
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 him.
ITO stem the elements alone in All
RIGA takes the stoutest heart. Fever:
assail the discouraged and underfet
home boy. The easily forded streams
become rivers, like swirling Niagaras
in a few hours and the terrific thun
derstorms paralyze one sensitive t.
electrical influences.
There Is no pretty little. far-of
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 ant
deep orange earthbound clouds tina
one has to come to complete stand
still whether walking or riding on the
open veldt, so as not to attract thu
ribbonlike lightning playing around
him and venting its fury on any NOV
ing object"