420 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



better class of Dutch families, have never made 

 any considerable attempt to practise agriculture on 

 a large scale. Their wine and brandy are through 

 careless manufacture not of a character to recommend 

 them to Europeans ; their wool is too frequently sent 

 to market in a wretched and filthy condition ; and 

 their tobacco, which might with care and attention 

 vie with American growths, is grown and cured in a 

 far too rough-and-ready manner, and only obtains a 

 sale at extremely moderate prices within the Colony.* 

 The Dutch Afrikanders have been chiefly responsible 

 for the prolonged and determined opposition to the 

 passing of a Scab Act, an Act which at length 

 carried through, will, it is computed, benefit the 

 flock-masters to the extent of half-a-million annually. 

 The Cape Dutch, indeed, cling with an extraordinary 

 infatuation to the habits and ways of their forefathers. 

 To this hour they will tell you that what sufficed for 

 their fathers will suffice for themselves, and a book 

 of travels of a hundred years since almost exactly 

 describes their present customs and manners. 



Yet in some respects has the Boer of South 

 Africa been, as I think, a too heartily abused 

 individual. He has his good points, as those who 

 have had intercourse with him must admit. No 

 one who recalls the stubborn and self-denying 

 independence of those emigrant farmers, who in 1836 

 forsook the land of their adoption (a land passionately 

 beloved and remembered by them even to this day), 

 and trekked with their waggons and their oxen, their 

 families and worldly goods, into the unknown wilds 

 of the Orange Free State, the Transvaal and Natal, 



* Boer tobacco sells at from one penny to sixpence per pound. 



