that horrible Hollander element which has been the root and instigating
cause of all the evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Some readers will recognise the significance, the
protective competence, the keen and reliable instinct which enable
untutored believers to discern and detect doctrinal leaven insidiously
concealed in the garb of worship.]

[Footnote 16: At Modder River, on the road between Bloemfontein and
Kimberley.]

[Footnote 17: At the time, December, 1899, when this was intended for
publication.]

PHYSIQUE AND HABITS

We have noted in former pages that the Boers' ancestry some two
centuries ago was composed of about two-thirds of sturdy Dutch peasants,
artizans, etc., while the other third consisted mostly of French
Huguenots.

It is known that the immigrant class, though generally somewhat poor,
are uniformly men and women endowed with an adventurous, self-reliant
spirit and with unimpaired health. Naturally none but robust persons
were permitted to join the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

We see in that combination the patient, resolute quality prevailing in
Holland and the more ardent, vivacious, and chivalrous character found
with the French people. The Huguenot refugees belonged undisputably to
the cream of that impulsive nation--intellectual, educated, and
fearless--whilst both portions were pervaded with deep-rooted religious
fervour and habituated to moral and temperate lives.

Those combined qualities and habits would naturally be transmitted to
the progeny; prosperity and splendid climatic conditions tended still
further to develop a virile physique of first order. The moral and
physical standards were maintained by the practice of men and women
marrying early in life, and by occupations which required the people to
pass most of their time in the open. Educationally, there was
unavoidably some retrogression, but there is always plenty of scope in
the existence of colonists in a new country for the exercise of a
vigorous mind in the study of nature, in overcoming difficulties and in
cultivating the faculty of resourcefulness.

Whilst missing the intellectual benefits of advanced civilization, the
people escaped the dangers of its vitiating tendencies, thus preserving
a healthy mental calibre as well as robust physical health. In addition
may be mentioned a very notable fecundal power, which accounts for the
phenomenally rapid increase of the people. All those condition