CONDITION OF THE BOORS. 67 
and certainty of the rewards which follow enterprise 
and perseverance. By ‘ Rewards, we do not mean 
silver cups, or other honorary premiums given by 
the agricultural societies. ‘These have their weight. 
But personal comforts, elevation in the scale of civi- 
lized life, the means of educating their children, and 
launching them into the world with better prospects 
of success than their predecessors enjoyed, inde- 
pendence, rank and station in society,—awaken an 
ardent desire for such rewards as these, and all that 
man can wish for in the way of industry will 
speedily follow. In all these respects the present 
condition of the Boors in many of the. districts is 
truly deplorable. 
‘« Miserably deficient in clothing, in furniture, in 
culinary utensils, in apartments—half-a-dozen people 
often sleeping in the same room—without instrue- 
tion, destitute of books, we have seen respectable 
fathers and mothers of families, who, in their youth, 
had known better things, sit down and weep over 
the unconcealable deterioration of their offspring. 
But such fits of regret were only momentary. Habit 
had reconciled them to this wretched mode of life; 
there was nothing either around or within them to 
stir up their ambition, or to carry them over the first 
pains or anxieties of unusual toil and new under- 
takings. 
“ In attempting to improve the physical condition 
of any people in such circumstances, we must begin 
F 2 
