Boer meal was the staple food; a big three-legged pot of it boiled into steaming “pap” made an excellent breakfast, and every few days I would bake a batch of “roster kookies,” little flat cakes made of the same meal with a little baking-powder to make them rise, and baked over the embers on a “roster,” or gridiron. Or occasionally I allowed the “boys” to make me a big loaf similar to their own, the composition being the same, but in this case the dough was massed into a loaf shaped like a flat Dutch cheese: the embers were thrown aside and the loaf buried in the ashes, and covered deep in them. Bread thus baked is of course very hard and often burnt on the outside, but when this is cut away it is excellent. Of fresh meat we had none, and although I gave the “boys” plenty of such luxuries as bully beef, sardines, and golden syrup, they pined for the flesh-pots of Egypt in the shape of their dearly loved sheep or goat _vleesch_. But there were no sheep in the locality; and although Sam spent the whole of a Sunday away at a farm about ten miles off, he failed to bring any meat back. The next Sunday, however, both of them cleared off in the early morning and did not return till nearly dark, when they brought in a big goat between them. Within a few minutes the head was off and buried in the ashes, and the knives were at work cutting up a big pot of _vleesch_. Then Sam cut off a leg and brought it to me. He spoke English quite well, did Sam. “Baas,” he said, “here is the _geldt_; I did not pay for this bok, he was present!” “Present!” I said, in surprise, for sheep-farmers do not usually refuse good money for their small stock. “How was that, then, Sam? Who gave you it?” “Nie,” he replied; “it was an ou baas of mine, I work for him once. And this bok he little sick, so the ou baas give him for present! Baas like me cook some _vleesch_ for him, now?” “No,” I said, with feeling; “very good of you, Sam, but I won’t deprive you of it. Little sick, was it? Well, well!” All that night the camp sizzled and smoked, and certainly that “sick bok” smelt good! They ate his head, baked in the ashes; they ate a big potful of boiled _vleesch_, and promptly put in another; they cut strips of him and broiled them on the embers, his internal arrangements frizzled and smoked and were devoured by the yard. I had my cold bully beef to the accompaniment of a really most appetising smell, smoked a pipe and turned in, and still they ate on. Whether they ate all night I cannot say, but certainly, when I woke again in the morning, they still sat there eating, and the remains of the “bok” looked very sick indeed.