must have heightened; but
as far back as 1816 we learn that even shrewd and sensible farmers
were heard to declaim against our methods of scientific agriculture,
and resist all efforts at its introduction into their work. One of
them, when informed of the saving of time and labour that certain
implements would effect, answered with characteristic conservatism.
"What," said he, "would you have us do? Our only concern is to fill
our bellies, to get good clothes and houses, to say to one slave,
'Do this,' and to another, 'Do that,' and to sit idle ourselves and
be waited upon. As to our tillage, or building, or planting, our
forefathers did so and so and were satisfied, and why should not we
do the same? The English want us to use their ploughs instead of our
heavy wooden ones, and recommend other implements of husbandry
than those we have been used to; but we like our old things best."

This preference for the old instead of the new has been the rock on
which friendship between Briton and Boer has split. All ideas of
reform have been met with suspicion--a kind of suspicion that,
though now confined to the Boers, was very prevalent in Europe a
hundred years ago. The present writer in extreme youth met here, in
advanced England, a grandam of ninety (the mother of a very
distinguished politician), who stated that she could "never make a
friend of a man who took a bath." It will be seen by this how
prejudice may become a matter of habit all the world over.

Mr. Nixon tells a story of an equally conservative Boer. This worthy
went to a store at Kimberley with bundles of tobacco for sale. The
Boer carefully weighed them out with some scales of his own that
were evidently an heirloom. The storekeeper reweighed the bundles,
remarking on the antiquity of the scales, and observing that they
gave short weight. He suggested the use of the store scales as the
standard for computing the price, which was to be fixed at so much a
pound. But the Boer would not hear of it. "No," said he, "these were
my father's scales, and he was a wise man and was never cheated, and
I won't use anybody else's." The storekeeper dryly remarked that he
did not desire to press the matter, since he found himself a gainer
by L12 in consequence of the Boer's conservative instincts!

Many writers urge that the Boer is naturally uncivil, that he lacks
the true feeling of hospitality. The original Boer, before he was
seized with a hatred for the British, was mo