advent of British folk and British gold and
brains led to a change, and land, by reason of British purchases,
became more valuable, and beacons and boundaries became necessary."
Here we may see the thin end of the wedge. We may picture the first
lawyer and the first financier advancing with Arcadia parchment and
bank-note in hand.

The Boers steadily sold their best and surplus lands, and these the
British as steadily bought, till the value rose from their original
price of one penny an acre to half-a-crown, and then five shillings.
Subsequently, in many cases, as much as ten, and even twenty
shillings an acre was offered for ordinary raw arable land. But of
that time too much has to be said to be recounted here.

THE BOER CHARACTER

In discussing the events of the past with a view to obtaining light
on the development of the present, it is needful, and indeed just,
to inquire into the character of the Boers as a race. It is a
complex character, with multitudinous lights and shades, so subtle
and yet so marked, that they are difficult to define accurately. It
is therefore necessary that the opinions of many writers on the
subject of the Boer temperament should be taken--of writers who have
made it their business to look upon the subject with the eye of the
historian rather than the eye of the advocate, and who may be
trusted to have given their verdict without passion or favour.

But regarding one fact connected with the case, all writers of
practical experience are inclined to agree. They declare that the
Boer of the past was a very much finer fellow than the Boer of the
present--finer morally and physically; and that in his obstinate
determination to resist the march of progress he has allowed himself
to suffer deterioration. The reason for this deterioration is not
difficult to comprehend. In the first place, as we all know, nothing
in creation stands still. We must advance, or we go back. Both in
moral and in mental qualities we must maintain our vitality, or
practically ossify!

The Boer, from having been essentially a sporting man and a free and
a robust tiller of the soil, has come under the influence of
schemers, who have played upon his natural avarice, and polished his
inherent cunning, till these qualities have expanded to the
detriment of those earlier qualities for which the Boer of to-day
still gets credit, but which are fast dying out of the national
character.

In one respect there has been l