SOUTHER^ AFRICA. 33 
understood by any of the peasantry, though there be many 
still living whose parents were both of that nation. Neither 
is a French book of any kind to be seen in their houses. It 
would seem as if these persecuted refugees had studied to 
conceal from their children their unfortunate history and their 
country's disgraceful conduct. 
The means of education, it is true, must be very difficult to 
be had among a people so widely scattered over a vast extent 
of country as the peasantry are in the colony of the Cape. 
Some have a person in the house whom they call the school- 
master. This is generally a man who had served out his time 
in the ranks. His employment, in this new situation, is not 
only to instruct the children to read, to write, to sing psalms, 
and get by heart a few occasional prayers, but he must also 
make himself serviceable in other respects. At one place that 
we passed, the poor schoolmaster was driving the plough, 
whilst a Hottentot had the more honorable post of holding and 
directing it. The children of those who either cannot obtain, 
or afford to employ, such a person, can neither read nor write ; 
and the whole of their education consists in learning to shoot 
well, to crack and use with dexterity an enormous large whip 
and to drive a waggon drawn by bullocks. 
A book of any kind is rarely seen in any of the farmers' 
houses, except the Bible and William Sluiters Gesangen, or 
songs out of the Bible done into verse by the Sternhold and 
Hopkins of Holland. They affect to be very religious, and carry 
at least the practical part of devotion fully as far as the most 
zealous bigots. They never sit down to table without a long 
