till the flame shall have come down to the pin. A little salt, I was assured, is often employed to make the flame weak and so prolong the happy hour. But the mother, who has perhaps had occasion to use salt in her own time, may probably provide for this when arranging the distance for the pin. A day or two afterwards the couple are married,--so that there is nothing of the “nonsense” and occasional heartbreak of long engagements. It is thus that “freying” is carried on among the Boers of the Transvaal. At home in England, what little is known about the Boers of South Africa,--or I might perhaps more correctly say what little has been told about them,--has tended to give a low notion of them as a race. And there is also an impression that the Boer and the English Colonist are very hostile to each other. I fear that the English Colonist does despise the Boer, but I have not found reason to think that any such hostility exists. Let an Englishman be where he may about the surface of the globe, he always thinks himself superior to other men around him. He eats more, drinks more, wears more clothes, and both earns and spends more money. He,--and the American who in this respect is the same as an Englishman,--always consume the wheat while others put up with the rye. He feeds on fresh meat, while dried or salt flesh is sufficient for his neighbours. He expects to be “boss,” while others work under him. This is essentially so in South Africa where he is constantly brought into contact with the Dutchman,--and this feeling of ascendancy naturally produces something akin to contempt. There is no English farmer in South Africa, who would not feel himself to be vilified by being put on a par with a Dutch farmer. When an Englishman marries a Boer’s daughter, the connexion is spoken of almost as a mésalliance. “He made a mistake and married a Dutchwoman,” I have heard more than once. But, nevertheless, the feeling does not amount to hostility. The Boer in a tacit way acknowledges his own inferiority, and is conscious that the Briton is strong enough and honest enough to do him some service by his proximity.