rom a beam.

Inquiries about the news at the Cape, and details of all the information
which our travellers could give, had occupied the time till breakfast
was put on the table. It consisted of mutton boiled and stewed, butter,
milk, fruits, and good white bread. Before breakfast was over the
caravan arrived, and the oxen were unyoked. Our travellers passed away
two hours in going over the garden and orchards, and visiting the
cattle-folds, and seeing the cows milked. They then yoked the teams,
and wishing the old boor a fare well, and thanking him for his
hospitality, they resumed their journey.

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

"Always," replied Swinton; "there are no inns on the road, and every
traveller 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 traveller 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 bed-room 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 demoralises 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 follow