Their recent overland experience among the burgher farmers had taken a good deal of the fine edge off their susceptibilities as to eating, drinking, and lodgment. It had also opened their eyes considerably as to the inconsistency of humanity. Those bare, dirty, and barn-like homesteads which satisfied the Boers generation after generation, and compared to which many of the huts of the Kaffirs were fragrant--the cow-dung and blood-blended plaster and flooring--were, to say the least, peculiar in their aroma to the nostrils of strangers. Added to this, the strong flavour of the Boer tobacco, with which those dens reeked, rendered the atmosphere more powerful than pleasant to any except a Boer family. To them, however, it smelt home-like and grateful. Outside, the approaches to a Boer farm were kept in a state of absolute and traditional disregard to all sanitary laws. The refuse and decay teemed with disease and abomination. No wanderer required a candle in the window to light them to these abodes of the dopper. Their olfactory organs would have been quick enough, even while suffering under the most virulent cold, for at least half a league distant. Wherever the Boer settled, that part of the veldt became a pigsty. Our heroes had experienced all this, and become case-hardened against unholy perfumes and disgusting sights. Their digestive organs had also become used to the tough biltong, vile coffee, and unvaried nightly stews. Thus they were able to stand a good deal of dirt and discomfort without noticing details. They had also gained a considerable insight of the Boers' other peculiarities. Their utter lack of humour and sullen stolidity; their merciless barbarity to their servants and cattle, joined to their stern and one-sided religious fervour. The Bible, the cowhide, and the rifle were always kept handy for constant use by those pious dopper farmers. The word of God for themselves and families. The cowhide for their cattle and servants, and the rifle where the cowhide failed to convince. They had seen these farmers flog the Kaffirs within an inch of their lives for the slightest offence, or perhaps because the master was in a bad temper, and the Kaffir chanced to be in his road. They had seen them bring out their guns, if the braced-up and lacerated natives looked nasty, and deliberately shoot them dead, then go indoors immediately after, read their Bibles, sing their psalms, and thank the Lord of hosts for giving them grace. Their infernal cruelties never touched their consciences in the slightest degree, and they had no fear of the laws of the land condemning them. Each Boer made his own laws, and these were merciless. There was no justice for the native; he was a beast to be down-trodden and enslaved. His land and his life were theirs, the chosen people of the Lord, to abuse or murder as they pleased.