ear which his daughter is busily engaged in a wash at the
welcome vlei. There are three other wagons outspanned by the pool: one
of them belongs to the Boer's two sons; one of them is inhabited by yet
another Trek-Boer, whose vrouw is engaged in the same task of washing,
and whose children--five of them--young, merry rascals, are playing in
the strong sunlight upon the edge of the water.

Their voices sound pleasantly upon the sweet, warm air, and recall, even
to Klaas Stuurmann's unimpressive mind, the younger days of his own
children and his now dead wife. The recollection brings an unwonted
tenderness to his rugged soul, and as the noisy imps, busy at their
games of wagon-and-oxen, play and clamour about him, he goes to his
wagon, opens his sugar-bag, fills a _kommetje_ [A small common
earthenware basin, universally used by the Boers instead of a tea or
coffee cup] with the dark-brown treacly stuff, and calls the tanned and
ragged little company about him. Jan, Katrina, Hendrik, Gert, Jacobina,
and the tiny, toddling Jacie, all receive their morsel of the
sweet-stuff--not without some awe and wonderment, for the grim, burly
Boer man seldom unbends so far.

The oxen are feeding quietly round the vlei; the Boer's eye follows them
with contentment, for water and the rich veldt have brought fat and
sleekness to their great frames. His daughter's toilet catches his eye,
and he watches the girl with an air of grave and secret pleasure, for
she is the last survivor of three girl children, and by no means an
ill-looking maiden in a Dutchman's eye. Ruyter, the Hottentot, has
brought an iron bucket from the wagon, and at the margin of the vlei he
fills it with water for the _meisje_, who already has soap, a towel, and
a comb. Taking off her sun-bonnet, she washes her face and hands, then,
unfettering her stout plait of fair brown hair, she leans forward, and
using the calm surface of the water as a mirror, combs out the somewhat
tangled locks. Again the brown hair is coiled into a neat plait, drawn
tightly from her temples, and her toilet is complete. As she ties on
her sun-bonnet again the Boer comes up, pats her broad back, and looks
admiringly at the now refreshened face. Two hundred years of South
Africa have little altered the old Batavian type. The eyes are blue,
but of small brilliancy, the cheeks too broad and flat for English
taste, and the young figure is already stiff, waistless, and heavy. Yet
in this f