He fights better behind cover than in the open, and has a profound contempt for soldiers who expose themselves unnecessarily. At the same time, he is capable at times of embarking on a forlorn hope. As regards his private character, his notions of honesty and of truth are lax. But then, from bitter experience, he assumes that the stranger will try to cheat him, and it is not surprising that he should consider a certain amount of _finesse_ justifiable. He is comparatively free from that drunkenness which is the besetting vice of the low-class Englishman in Africa. "Although he is incredibly ignorant, and very self-satisfied, it is somewhat irritating to notice the way in which the town-bred Englishman is apt to depreciate him. It is not so certain as the latter thinks that an ignorant peasant is necessarily a lower type of man than a 'smart' and vicious shop-boy. "The most unpleasing trait in the Boer character is his callousness, amounting to brutality, in the case of natives and of animals." It must always be remembered that in discussing the early Boer we are discussing the peasant, and that neither his ignorance nor other shortcomings must be viewed in comparison with the failings of persons of a higher social grade. When the Boers left the Cape Colony they had no knowledge of what the word education meant. The state of public education in 1837 was deplorable. There were missionary schools and a few desultory teachers, who had in very few cases the mental or the moral qualities to fit them for the task of instruction. The most they did was to teach the young idea how to read or scribble its name. For this they received trifling fees, but doubtless these fees were no more trifling than the services rendered. Such free schools as existed, and were nominally supported by Government, were so indifferently managed that they were treated with contempt, even by the farmers. So long as they could thumb out their favourite passages of the Psalms, and sign what few documents they required, they were content. Of their ignorance they were even inclined to be proud. Their own notions of geography and history seemed to them infinitely preferable to any that might be offered, and in this state of blissful ignorance they trekked away from Cape Colony to learn no more. When they started forth, some, it is averred, imagined by steadily working north they would reach Jerusalem; others, covered with faith, and armed with gospel and sjambok, sincerely believed that eventually they would reach the Promised Land. CHAPTER II THE ORANGE FREE STATE