During the several hot months we were there we had an opportunity of studying the characteristics of the Dutch Boer, who is met with in this part of the country in his primitive state. The Africander Boer is usually a tall, lanky, narrow-chested individual, with black hair, straggling beard and whiskers, cautious, suspicious, and undemonstrative, his countenance expressing little imagination and his body great physical endurance. He is never quarrelsome if it can be avoided; he is as shrewd at a bargain as any Scotchman, and in all his dealings displays an odd mixture of cunning and credulity. His contradictory history, however, makes it difficult to determine whether he is a brave man or the reverse. He is usually dressed in a yellow cord jacket, vest and trousers, with a flannel shirt, and veldt _schoen_ (low shoes of untanned leather with no heels), the whole surmounted by a broad-brimmed slouch hat with a green lining. When he wishes to be particularly fine, as, for instance, when he goes a-courting, he sticks an ostrich feather in his hat, squeezes his long feet into a pair of patent leather congress gaiters, and encases his legs in showy leather leggings. He then mounts a horse that "_kop-spiels_," gets into a new saddle with a sheepskin saddle cloth, and imagines himself just lovely! CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. The language is the queerest jumble of Dutch, Kafir, and colonial war shouts, which, when spoken by a fluent Dutchman, sounds more like the tearing of strong linen than anything else. It certainly is a fine language with which to urge on the drooping spirits of a tired team of oxen. As a class the Boers are extremely strict in religious observances. The periodical "Nachtmaal," literally "night meal" or "sacrament," held every three months at the large and fine Dutch church, they attend faithfully. The farmers will pack their whole families into a wagon, and leaving the homestead to take care of itself, will "trek" into town, where some of them will occupy little clay houses of two rooms, or camp outside until the services are over, when they will "in-span" and return home. They always take advantage of these visits to do their shopping. At such times the stores wake up and put out their smartest calicoes and their yellowest saddles with which to tempt the wary Boer and Boeress. It is interesting to enter the village at night where a Nachtmaal is to be held next day. There is almost a second village of tent-covered wagons all around it. The various fires have each a group of men and women sitting round it, while in the shadows lie the slumbering oxen and chattering "boys." After remaining at the hotel until we were tired of hotel life, we secured board at a farmhouse about two hours' ride from Bloemfontein.