332 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



could be finished in a week or ten days, often 

 lasts from January to June, after a quite astonishing 

 amount of labour. 



The Boer is just beginning to find out that 

 banks are really sound and reliable institutions, 

 not intended for the robbery of the farmer of his 

 hardly won money. But even now very few take 

 advantage of the bank in the nearest country town ; 

 they cannot be brought to believe that any man 

 can be so foolish as to pay them interest for the 

 privilege of taking charge of their savings, and 

 rather look upon this as a cunning trap, devised to 

 snare the unwary. The average up-country Boer 

 prefers to accumulate his savings in a chest in the 

 bedroom, and amongst the richer members of the 

 community, it was not an uncommon thing, in the 

 good days, to have 10,000 or 12,000 lying in 

 the house in specie. Even now, despite recent 

 bad times, large hoards lie stored in the family 

 chest. 



Stories of the Cape Dutch and their quaint 

 ways are innumerable; here is one of them. Before 

 the Cape railway to Wellington was completed, a 

 Boer transport rider used to drive his ox-waggon, 

 heavily laden with produce, over the deep and 

 distressing sands that form the Cape Flats, and at 

 this point often had to call in the aid of a second 

 span of oxen. 



When the railway was built, the old fellow was 

 tempted, with some heart-quaking, to try a journey 

 by train over his old trekking-ground. As sometimes 

 happened then on Cape railways, the engine had to pull 

 up on these very flats to get up more steam. There- 

 upon the old Dutchman put his head out of the carriage 



