208 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



meal. His stout vrouw sits near him upon a low 

 wagon-chair, stirring the embers and watching the 

 kettle of coffee. From the fore-clap (curtain) of the 

 buck-wagon the faces — none too clean — of two or 

 three small children peer forth. The Boer is a man 

 of strong, loose-knit frame. His hair, eyes, and com- 

 plexion are very swarthy — attributes which have 

 descended to him from some Huguenot ancestor. 

 His long, unkempt hair falls about his ears and neck. 

 His vast beard has lost some of its true colour from 

 incessant exposure to the sun, and is tanned to a kind 

 of rusty black. His short cord jacket, and trousers 

 of the same material, are frayed and torn from 

 contact with bush and thorns, and the stains of grease 

 and blood, from much skinning of pelts, are very 

 apparent. Hans finishes his coffee, picks up his 

 Westley-Richards rifle — an excellent weapon — buckles 

 a bandolier of cartridges round his waist, a single 

 rusty spur on his left heel, and chmbs to the saddle 

 of the small, rough, but hardy-looking horse that his 

 native servant has been holding for him. Now that 

 he is in the saddle you may see that, like most of his 

 fellows, he wears no socks or stockings ; his ankles 

 are bare ; a pair of highlow velsclwens, fashioned by 

 himself from a piece of water-buck hide, serve him 

 for footgear. 



With a gruff but kindly salutation to the children 

 and his wife, the Boer rides off into the veldt, 



