HORSE BUYING AND BREEDING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 559 
berg there was an enormous number of young stock of all sorts and 
sizes, which, as far as we could gather were bred on the following 
system. The foundation being the native mare, the owner started 
with a thoroughbred sire. His stock rapidly getting too light he 
bought a Percheron sire. This grey Norman horse very soon brought 
the stud to the other extreme, so the Dutchman bethought him of 
the hackney which he used for several years, when he considered he 
wanted more substance again, so off he goes to the Port Elizabeth 
show and purchases a shire (and not at all a bad horse either) who 
shared the harem, when we visited it, with a hackney. To end up 
with, the mares in their declining years were mated to a Jack donkey 
and I am not at all sure that their progeny from this union was not the 
best of the lot. The remainder, as we saw them in the kraal, were a 
queer crowd. 
When once it is made evident that we intend that the British flag 
shall remain flying over South Africa, which in the opinion of most 
Colonists is all that is needed to allay the bitter race feeling which has 
only arisen in the last twenty years, it is to be hoped that British enter¬ 
prise and capital will be attracted to the Colony for other purposes 
than gold mining or diamond digging, and that the class of English¬ 
man who now goes ranching in Montana or the Argentine will take 
up farming and horse breeding in this Colony. With energy and a 
moderate capital (necessary for irrigation) he can hardly fail to do 
well, and to anyone at all delicate as to his lungs the higher portions 
of the country are most beneficial. At present most of the land is in 
the hands of Dutch farmers, and it will be a good thing for them as 
well as for the land when a larger proportion of it comes into the 
hands of the more progressive Anglo-Saxon. 
To conclude, with all its drawbacks, its monotonous want of trees, 
the sameness of its flat topped hills, and its waterless rivers, it is a 
country which takes hold of English settlers, and grips them so that 
they are loth to quit it, and anxious to return to it when they come 
“ Home ” on a visit. 
Though I cannot understand this, believing firmly that there is no 
country to live in that can compare with England, yet it is a fact, 
attested by many an Englishman who, after being 5 or 6 years in the 
Colony, has tried going back to England and found that the life did 
not suit him. 
It is the want of liberty and space perhaps that chokes him, but 
whatever it is, this love of the land of his adoption is a real one, and 
is one of the most hopeful signs for the future of South Africa. 
Kimberley, 
1st October, 1899. 
