68 THE BOERS AS FARMERS. Chap. V. 



of steatopyga, so characteristic of Arabs and other African 

 tribes. 



The farms of the Boers usually consist of a small patch of 

 cultivated land in the midst of some miles of pasturage. 

 They are thus less an agricultural than a pastoral people. Each 

 farm must have its fountain ; and where no supply of water 

 exists the lands are unsaleable. An acre in England is 

 generally worth more than a square mile in Africa ; but the 

 value of colonial farms increases year by year, and they are ca- 

 pable of vast improvement. If dams and tanks were formed, 

 greater fruitfulness would certainly follow. 



As cattle and sheep farmers the colonists are very successful. 

 Larger quantities of wool are produced every year. But this 

 pastoral system requires a rapid extension of ground, and 

 the farmers are gradually spreading to the north. The move- 

 ment proves prejudicial to the country behind, by drawing off 

 the labour which would otherwise be directed to the im- 

 provement of the territory already occupied. Encroachment 

 upon the interior actually diminishes cultivation, for less land 

 is put under the plough than was before subjected to the native 

 hoe. The Basutos and Zulus, or Caifres of Natal, undersell 

 our farmers wherever they have a fair field and no favour. 



The parts of the colony through which we passed were of 

 sterile aspect ; and as the present winter had been preceded 

 by a severe drought, many farmers had lost two-thirds of their 

 stock. The landscape was uninviting ; the hills, destitute of 

 trees, were of a dark-brown colour, and the scanty vegetation 

 on the plains made me feel that they were more deserving of 

 the name of Desert than the Kalahari. The soil is said to have 

 been originally covered with a coating of grass, which has 

 disappeared with the antelopes which fed upon it, and a crop 

 of mesembryanthemums and crassulas occupies its place. It 

 is curious to observe how organizations the most dissimilar 

 depend on each other for their perpetuation. Here the first 

 grasses owed their dissemination to the animals, which scat- 

 tered the seeds. ^ hen, by the death of the antelopes, no 

 fresh sowing was made, the African droughts proved too much 

 for the crop. But another family of plants stood ready to 

 prevent the sterility which must otherwise have ensued. The 

 mesembryanthemums possess seed-vessels which remain firmly 



