d their journey.

"Is it always the custom here to receive travelers in this friendly
way?" observed Alexander, as they rode away.

"Always," replied Swinton; "there are no inns on the road, and every
traveler finds a welcome. It is considered a matter of course."

"Do they never take payment?"

"Never, and it must not be offered; but they will take the value of the
corn supplied to your horses, as that is quite another thing. One
peculiarity you will observe as you go along, which is, that the Dutch
wife is a fixture at the little tea-table all day long. She never leaves
it, and the tea is always ready for every traveler who claims their
hospitality; it is an odd custom."

"And I presume that occasions the good woman to become so very lusty."

"No doubt of it; the whole exercise of the day is from the bedroom to
the teapot, and back again," replied Swinton, laughing.

"One would hardly suppose that this apparently good-natured and
hospitable people could have been guilty of such cruelty to the natives
as Mr. Fairburn represented."

"Many of our virtues and vices are brought prominently forward by
circumstances," replied Swinton. "Hospitality in a thinly-inhabited
country is universal, and a Dutch boor is hospitable to an excess. Their
cruelty to the Hottentots and other natives arises from the prejudices
of education: they have from their childhood beheld them treated as
slaves, and do not consider them as fellow-creatures. As Mr. Fairburn
truly said, nothing demoralizes so much, or so hardens the heart of man,
as slavery existing and sanctioned by law."

"But are not the Dutch renowned for cruelty and love of money?"

"They have obtained that reputation, and I fear there is some reason for
it. They took the lead, it must be remembered, as a commercial nation,
more commercial than the Portuguese, whose steps they followed so
closely: that this eager pursuit of wealth should create a love of money
is but too natural, and to obtain money, men, under the influence of
that passion, will stop at nothing. Their cruelties in the East are on
record; but the question is, whether the English, who followed the path
of the Dutch, would not, had they gone before them, have been guilty of
the same crimes to obtain the same ends? The Spaniards were just as
cruel in South America, and the Portuguese have not fallen short of
them; nay, I doubt if our own countrymen can be acquitted in many
instances. The only difference is,