Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Boer WacÏon With Fjrewood. CHAPTER II. THE BOER. Where arc the Roerá ?—The Boer a farmer.—Grass-fires nnd their consequences.—Habits of the fanner.—Peculiar theology of the Boer which governs his life and action.—Boer relations to the Kafirs.—Violence of Church disputes.—President KrUjjer.—Some causes of the Boer War. —The Boers ?? soldiers.—Homely life of the President; his great influence with the Boers.—Many farmers now wealthy men.—Physical characteristics of the Boers ; their supposed dislike to the British ; their mistrust of the Hollanders. One of the first questions I asked after residing a short time in Pretoria, the capital of Boer-land, was, where are the Boers I They are not to be found employed in the Government offices, for here Hollanders are generally engaged ; they do not keep stores—at least, so seldom, that the exception proves the rule ; there are no Boer clerks in mercantile offices, no handicraft or manufacture carried on by them. British, Dutch, and German are the nationalities which compose the population ; but where are the Boers ? Beyond the farmers who bring in their produce and firewood for sale, and can be found at the early morning market, the Boer is a visitor at Pretoria, and the same remark applies to all the towns of the Transvaal. The Boer is a farmer, or, more correctly, a dweller on the veld—he loves solitude and cares nothing for the outside world. I had frequent business relations with one, which occasioned almost weekly visits, and as webecame fairly good friends, this farmer may be taken as a typical example of the Boer. This man possesses a tract of 20,000 acres, which is called a farm. Scarcely any of this domain is cultivated ; it embraces part of a range of hills which forms a boundary, and contains several isolated ...