e house you will probably find a litter of pigs, a
score of hens, etc. And the one room is about as clean as the
other--most people would prefer to sleep alongside the pigs and the
fowls.

The most painful proceeding is to dine in such a place. Unless you are
blessed with a cast-iron constitution and a stomach of the same
pattern, you are not likely to survive. Usually they put down boiled
meat first, after which comes the soup. The chief regret in your case
is that the soup had not come first, so that you could have disposed
of it right away and had something on top of it. Coffee, of course, is
never forgotten, and it would be a direct insult to refuse it. Coffee
is a great thing with the Boer. He would as soon be without house and
home, as his bag of coffee. Before selling his wool to the merchant,
almost the first thing he asks is: 'What is your price for coffee?' If
a satisfactory quotation is forthcoming, he does not hesitate long in
disposing of his staple, although, of course, at the highest price
obtainable.

The story goes that once upon a time a Boer, whose conscience had
remained dormant from his birth, came to a certain town to purchase
goods in exchange for produce. One of the articles he bought was,
naturally, coffee, and of that he took half a bag. While the clerk was
engaged in attending to some other matters, the Boer quietly and, as
he thought, unobserved, undid the cord which secured the mouth of the
coffee bag, and slipped in a quarter of a hundred-weight of lead which
was lying in the vicinity and which he evidently calculated on finding
useful. The clerk observed this movement without betraying the fact,
and when the order was completed his eye fell upon the coffee bag
casually.

'Oh! wait a moment,' he remarked. 'I fancy I have forgotten to weigh
that coffee.'

He weighed it over again and carefully noted down the figures in his
little book, no doubt much to the chagrin of the silent Boer, who
probably had not reckoned on paying for his lead in the same
proportion as the cost of his coffee per pound.

On another occasion, a Boer, the extent of whose wealth was probably
unknown to himself, found it necessary to dispute certain items in his
account with his storekeeper. This sort of thing, by the way, is the
rule and by no means the exception. It seems natural also when it is
noted that the majority of Boers run twelve-monthly accounts, and by
the time they come to square up, they find a diff