The Boer here depicted is the representative Boer--the one who shoulders his rifle and fights for his country; the one who watches his cattle on the plains and pays his taxes; the one who tries to improve his condition, and takes advantage of every opportunity for advancement that is offered. There is a worthless Boer, as there is a worthless Englishman, a worthless German, and a worthless American, but he is so far in the minority that he need not be analyzed. There is, however, a Boer who lives in the towns and cities, and he compares favourably with other men of South African birth. He has had the advantage of better schools, and can speak one or more languages besides his own. He is not so nomadic in his tendencies as his rural countryman, and he has absorbed more of the modernisms. He can conduct a philosophic argument, and his wife and daughters can play the piano. If he is wealthy, his son is a student at a European university and his daughter flirting on the beach at Durban or attending a ladies’ seminary at Bloemfontein or Grahamstown. He is as progressive as any white man cares to be under that generous South African sun, and when it comes to driving a bargain he is a match for any of the money sharks of Johannesburg. For the youthful Boer who reaches the city directly from the country, without any trade or profession, the prospects are gloomy. He is at a great disadvantage when put into competition with almost any class of residents. The occupations to which he can turn are few, and these have been still further restricted in late years by the destruction of cattle by the rinderpest and the substitution of railways for road transport. His lack of education unfits him for most of the openings provided in such a city as Johannesburg, even when business is at its highest tide, and a small increase in the tension of business brings him to absolute want. The Boer of to-day is a creature of circumstance. He is outstripped because he has had no opportunities for development. Driven from Cape Colony, where he was rapidly developing a national character, he was compelled to wander into lands that offered no opportunities of any description. He has been cut off for almost a hundred years from an older and more energetic civilization, and even from his neighbours; it is no wonder that he is a century behind the van. No other civilized race on earth has been handicapped in such a manner, and if there had been one it is a matter for conjecture whether it would have held its own, as the Boer has done, or whether it would have fallen to the level of the savage.