274 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



the colony. Some time ago, Napoleon III., anxious to 

 restore the ancient nobility, sent for one of these Boers, 

 who, in the old country, was the heir to a dukedom, 

 inviting him to resume his title and estates. The colo- 

 nist came to Paris, and, after giving European life a fair 

 trial, became homesick for his vineyard and his farm, 

 and — perhaps impelled by that attraction which seems 

 to draw back to the Cape those who have once lived 

 under its bright sk}^ — decided in favour of his old- 

 fashioned life, and, resigning all his ancestral rights, 

 went joyfully home to the rough surroundings of his 

 childhood. 



Although the Boers are line, well-built, handsome 

 men, their feminine relatives, far from equalling them 

 in good looks, are as fat and ungraceful as any inmates 

 of Turkish harems. Fortunately, however, excessive 

 obesity is in the eyes of a Boer the ver}^ quality of all 

 others which constitutes the chief attraction of a mooie 

 vrouw (handsome woman) ; and when he uses the 

 latter expression you may be sure that he speaks of a 

 ponderous being, no less than thirteen or fourteen 

 stone in weight. In this matter of taste the Boers 

 resemble not only the Turks, but also the Zulus, who 

 can pay a woman no higher compliment than to com- 

 pare her to a she-elephant. The vrouivs become passees 

 at a very early age, and are apparently shortlived in 

 comparison with their lords, if one may judge from 

 the fact that it is no uncommon tning to meet a man 

 of fifty who has already had three wives. 



Intellectually, no less than physically, the Boer 



