American interests in South Africa having been so infinitesimal until the last decade, our own knowledge of the country and its people naturally was of the same proportions. When Americans learned anything concerning South Africa or the Boers it came by way of London, which had vaster interests in the country, and should have been able to give exact information. But, like other colonial information, it was discoloured with London additions, and the result was that American views of the Boers tallied with those of the Englishman. Among the more prominent Englishmen who have recently studied the Boers from a car window, and have given the world the benefit of their opinions, is a man who has declared that the Boer blocked the way in South Africa, and must go. Among other declarations with which this usually well-informed writer has taken up the cudgel in behalf of his friend Mr. Rhodes, he has called the Boers "utterly detestable," "guilty of indecencies and family immorality," and even so "benighted and uncivilized" as to preclude the possibility of writing about them. All this he is reported to have said about a race that has been lauded beyond measure by the editors of every country in the world except those under the English flag. The real cause of it all is found in the Boers’ disposition to carry their own burdens, and their disinclination to allow England to be their keeper. Their opinions of justice and right were formed years ago in Cape Colony, and so long as their fighting ability has not been proved in a negative manner, so long will the Boers be reviled by the covetous Englishmen of South Africa and their friends. The Boer of to-day is a man who loves solitude above all things. He and his ancestors have enjoyed that chief product of South Africa for so many generations that it is his greatest delight to be alone. The nomadic spirit of the early settler courses in his veins, and will not be eradicated though cities be built up all around him and railroads hem him in on all sides. He loves to be out on the veldt, where nothing but the tall grass obstructs his view of the horizon, and his happiness is complete when, gun in hand, he can stalk the buck or raise the covey on soil never upturned by the share of a plough. The real Boer is a real son of the soil. It is his natural environment, and he chafes when he is compelled to go where there are more than a dozen dwellings in the same square mile of area. The pastoral life he and his ancestors have been leading has endowed him with a happy-go-lucky disposition. Some call him lazy and sluggish because he has plenty of time at his disposal and "counts ten" before acting. Others might call that disposition a realization of his necessities, and his chosen method of providing for them.