Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1912-01-05
ON A. .BOER FARM
NOT INVITING FROM AMERICAN
POINT OF VIEW.
Woman Traveller Describes the Mo-
notony and Discomforts she
Found In tho Agricultural Re-
aionS Of South Africa.

An American woman travelling in
South Africa was detained by floods
and compelled to spend a 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 It was q 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
figs hanging in clusters were pretty
allur1ng. After pushing back the
skin OF the fig and enjoying the soft
fruit with its tropical taste I had a
refreshing nights sleep. only to awak-
en- In the morning pretty we'll scared,
Tor my tongue was 80 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 | had not been careful
to remove 1t when eating.
When told the farmers wife
that | liked buttermilk in quantity I
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 I, for they would
stay longer with her and were her
familiars. I-was not
Then again, when | 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 75 cents a pound,
more. or less. Sour bread and green
strawberries (plenty of them) were
considered good enough
THE Boer family was one OF the
wealthiest OF their kind. There was
not ripple Of fun or exuberant life
in anything but the live stock. Con-
Versation was q dead language-un.
known.
The women are mute 5einSs. ac-
cepting their destiny with a deep
stiffness. The wife gives Of aer
strength to the limit, and dies after
giving birth to 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 a chamber OF
horror to an Amerivan traveller.
THE farmer depends upon his ten
to eighteen children, of all sizes, to
help him. A Kaffir as an employe
ia undependable as the wind that
blows. Yet that Kafiir Is the hired
man in the mines and elsewhere in
South Africa. The white man as a
day laborer Is general failure. He
cannot be worked In droves like the
Kafnr from the interior, whose Ian
guage, in clicks and vowel sounds, is
hardly human.
"The Boer is not long lived. One
seldom met an aged Boer OF tho old
stock. Dom Paul Kruger. who was
7b years old when he die6, 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 him.
ITO stem the elements alone in Az
rica takes tho stoutest heart. Fevers
sssail the discouraged and underfe6
home boy. The easily forded streams
become rivers, like swirling Niagaras,
u q few hours and the terrific thun-
ierstorms paralyze one sensitive to
influences.
There is no pretty little, fer-ofr
streak in the sky which tho amateur
can catch on HIS aim.
but the air is charged with electricity
70 appalling in It's violet hued and
ieep orange earthbound clouds that
me has to come to complete stand
It'll whether walking OF riding on tho
'pen yeldt, so as not to attract tho
'ibbonlike lightning playing around
him and venting its fury on any NOV.