98 
DUTCH AND FEENCH BOEES. 
Chap. V. 
situated far from the centres of civilization are less informed, 
but are a body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry. 
A most efficient system of pubhc instruction was estabhshed in 
the time of Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up in 
a great measure by that accomplished philosopher. Sir Jolm 
Herschel. The system had to contend with less sectarian rancour 
than elsewhere; indeed, until quite recently, that spirit, except in 
a mild form, was unknown. 
The population here described ought not to be confounded with 
some Boers who fled from British rule on account of the emanci¬ 
pation of their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never would have 
been so, had not every now and then some Eip Van Winkle 
started forth at the Cape to justify in the public prints the deeds 
of blood and slave-hunting in the far interior. It is therefore 
not to be wondered at if the whole race is confounded and held 
in low estimation by those who do not know the real composition 
of the Cape community. 
Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry 
soon, are seldom sterile, and continue to have cliildren late. I once 
met a worthy matron, whose husband thought it right to imitate 
the conduct of Abraham while Sarah was barren; she evidently 
agreed m the propriety of the measure, for she was pleased to 
hear the children by a mother of what has been thought an 
inferior race address her as theh mother. Orphans are never 
allowed to remain long destitute; and instances are frequent in 
which a tender-hearted farmer has adopted a fatherless child, and 
when it came of age has portioned it as his own. 
Two centuries of the South African chmate have not had much 
effect upon the physical condition of the Boers. They are a 
shade darker, or rather ruddier, than Europeans, and are never 
cadaverous-looking, as descendants of Europeans are said to be 
elsewhere. There is a tendency to the development of steatopyga, 
so characteristic of Arabs and other African tribes; and it is 
probable that the interior Boers in another century will become 
in colom’ what the learned imagine our progenitors Adam and 
Eve to have been. 
The parts of the colony tlirough which we passed were of 
sterile aspect; and as the present winter had been preceded by a 
severe drought, many farmers had lost two-tliirds of their stock. 
