The watching of herds of cattle and flocks of sheep has since biblical times been considered an easier business than the digging of minerals or the manufacture of iron, and the Boer has realized that many years ago. He has also realized the utter uselessness of digging for minerals and the manufacture of iron when the products of either were valueless at a distance of a thousand miles from the nearest market. Taking these facts in consideration, the Boer has done what other less nomadic people have done. He has improved the opportunities which lay before him, and has allowed the others to pass untouched. The Boers are not an agricultural people, because the nature of the country affords no encouragement for the following of that pursuit. The great heat of the summer removes rivers in a week and leaves rivulets hardly big enough to quench the thirst of the cattle. Irrigation is out of the question, as the great rivers are too far distant and the country too level to warrant the building of artificial waterways. Taking all things into consideration, there is nothing for a Boer to do but raise cattle and sheep, and he may regard himself particularly fortunate at the end of each year if drought and disease have not carried away one half of this wealth. The Boer’s habits and mode of life are similar to those of the American ranchman, and in reality there is not much difference between the two except that the latter is not so far removed from civilization. The Boer likes to be out of the sight of the smoke of his neighbour’s house, and to live fifteen or twenty miles from another dwelling is a matter of satisfaction rather than regret to him. The patriarchal custom of the people provides against the lack of companionship which naturally would follow this custom. When a Boer’s children marry they settle within a short distance of the original family homestead; generally several hundred yards distant. In this way, in a few years, a small village is formed on the family estates, which may consist of from five hundred to ten thousand acres of uninclosed grazing ground. Every son when he marries is entitled to a share of the estate, which he is supposed to use for the support of himself and his family, and in that way the various estates grow smaller each generation. When an estate grows too small to support the owner, he "treks" to another part of the country, and receives from the state such an amount of territory as he may require. Boer houses, as a rule, are situated a long distance away from the tracks of the transport wagons, in order that passing infected animals may not introduce disease into the flocks and herds of the farmer. Strangers are seldom seen as a result of this isolation, and news from the outer world does not reach the Boers unless they travel to the towns to make the annual purchases of necessaries.