40 ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH [ch. ii 
shaped, and filled with plaited raw hide, were so attrac¬ 
tive 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 cultiva¬ 
tion, for corn and vegetables; and the wild veldt 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 moustached, 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 
to be sung by the father, who holds the little boy or 
little girl on his knee, and tosses him or her up in the 
air when he comes to the last line: 
“ Trippa, troppa, tronjes, 
De varken’s in de boonjes, 
De koejes in de klaver, 
De paardeen in de haver, 
