OUR NEIGHBOURS 105 



either work for him or go elsewhere to find a 

 living. 1 



As a reverse side of the picture, it strikes a 

 foreigner that, in the relations of these peasants 

 with each other, there is quite an unnecessary 

 amount of jealousy and backbiting. This is 

 possibly a result of peasant proprietorship, and 

 the land-hunger common to countries where 

 other modes of living than on the land are 

 rare. And in any business dealings which a 

 stranger may have with them, he will do well 

 to take no statement on trust. 



During the war in South Africa, the 

 sympathies of these people were of course 

 strongly with the Boers ; but with the ex- 

 ception of one offensive American-Norwegian 

 who hung over our garden fence, and guessed 

 the Boers were knocking spots out of the 

 British army, they were very guarded in their 

 remarks to us. Lars, on being told that peace 

 was concluded, would only say, "And quite 

 time too." It was chiefly the financial aspect 

 of the war that struck Anders. On any re- 

 ference to it, he always murmured, " Kost 



1 A most interesting and sympathetic account of this, as of other 

 Norwegian matters, may be found in Laing's te Journal of a Resi- 

 dence in Norway, published hi London in 1836. 



