y employed a method similar to that
used against the Zulus of Dingaan. According to Livingstone's essay,
written in 1853, and not published till after his death, "the Boers
approach the Zulus to within 300 or 400 yards, then fire, and retire
to a considerable distance and reload their guns. The Zulus pursuing
have by this time come sufficiently near to receive another
discharge from the Boers, who again retire as before. This process
soon tires out the fleetest warriors, and except through an
accident, or the stumbling of a horse or its rider's drunkenness, no
Boer ever stands a chance of falling into their hands. The Boers
report of themselves that they behaved with great bravery on the
occasion." In fact they said that they had killed from 3000 to 5000
Zulus, with the loss to themselves of only six men. Mr. Fisher, in
his book on "The Transvaal and the Boers," avers that in the
subsequent war with the Griquas--who, being the bastard children of
the Boers, possess many of their peculiarities--the two opposing
parties kept at such ludicrous distances that the springboks quietly
grazing on the plains between were frequently shot instead of the
combatants.

SOME DOMESTIC TRAITS

For the domestic character of the Boer we will consult the
Scandinavian traveller Sparrmann, who gives us one of the earliest
sketches of the Boer "at home." Though the illusion that the
industrious and cleanly Hollander was merely transplanted from one
soil to another is somewhat dispelled, the picture is generally
acknowledged to be a true one.

"It is hardly to be conceived," he wrote in 1776, "with what little
trouble the Boer gets into order a field of a moderate size ... so
that ... he may be almost said to make the cultivation of it, for
the bread he stands in need of for himself and his family, a mere
matter of amusement.... With pleasure, but without the least trouble
to himself, he sees the herds and flocks which constitute his riches
daily and considerably increasing. These are driven to pasture and
home again by a few Hottentots or slaves, who likewise make the
butter; so that it is almost only with the milking that the farmer,
together with his wife and children, concern themselves at all. To
do this business, however, he has no occasion to rise before seven
or eight o'clock in the morning.... That they (the Boers) might not
put their arms and bodies out of the easy and commodious posture in
which they had laid them on the couc