40 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
the rains came. The houses were of stone, and clean and 
comfortable; the floors were covered with the skins of buck 
and zebra; the chairs were home-made, as was most of the 
other furniture; the ‘‘rust bunks,” or couches, strongly and 
gracefully shaped, and filled with plaited raw hide, were 
so attractive that I ordered one to take home. There were 
. neatly kept little flower-gardens, suffering much from the 
drought; there were ovens and out-buildings; cattle-sheds 
for the humped oxen and the herds of pretty cows and 
calves; the biltong was drying in smoke-houses; there 
were patches of ground in cultivation, for corn and veg¬ 
etables; and the wild velt came up to the door-sills, and 
the wild game grazed quietly on all sides within sight of 
the houses. It was a very good kind of pioneer life; and 
there could be no better pioneer settlers than Boers such 
as I saw. 
The older men wore full beards, and were spare and 
sinewy. The young men were generally smooth-faced or 
mustached, strongly built, and rather shy. The elder 
women were stout, cordial, motherly housewives; the 
younger were often really pretty. At their houses I was 
received with hearty hospitality, and given coffee or fresh 
milk, while we conversed through the medium of the sons 
or daughters who knew a little English. They all knew 
that I was of Dutch origin, and were much interested when 
I repeated to them the only Dutch I knew, a nursery song 
which, as I told them, had been handed down to me by my 
own forefathers, and which in return I had repeated, so 
many, many times, to my children when they were little. 
It runs as follows, by the way; but I have no idea how the 
words are spelled, as I have no written copy; it is supposed 
