e of their history belies. A Boer does not like
fighting if he can avoid it, because he sets a high value on his own
life; but if he is cornered, he will fight as well as anybody else. The
Boers fought well enough, in the late war, though that, it is true, is
no great criterion of courage, since they were throughout flushed with
victory, and, owing to the poor shooting of the British troop, in but
little personal danger. One very unpleasant characteristic they have,
and that is an absence of regard for the truth, especially where land
is concerned. Indeed the national characteristic is crystallised into
a proverb, "I am no slave to my word." It has several times happened to
me, to see one set of highly respectable witnesses in a land case, go
into the box and swear distinctly that they saw a beacon placed on a
certain spot, whilst an equal number on the other side will swear that
they saw it placed a mile away. Filled as they are with a land hunger,
to which that of the Irish peasant is a weak and colourless sentiment,
there is little that they will not do to gratify their taste. It is
the subject of constant litigation amongst them, and it is by no means
uncommon for a Boer to spend several thousand pounds in lawsuits over a
piece of land not worth as many hundreds.

Personally Boers are fine men, but as a rule ugly. Their women-folk are
good-looking in early life, but get very stout as they grow older. They,
in common with most of their sex, understand how to use their tongues;
indeed, it is said, that it was the women who caused the rising against
the English Government. None of the refinements of civilisation enter
into the life of an ordinary Boer. He lives in a way that would shock an
English labourer at twenty-five shillings the week, although he is very
probably worthy fifteen or twenty thousand pounds. His home is but too
frequently squalid and filthy to an extraordinary degree. He himself has
no education, and does not care that his children should receive any.
He lives by himself in the middle of a great plot of land, his nearest
neighbour being perhaps ten or twelve miles away, caring but little for
the news of the outside world, and nothing for its opinions, doing very
little work, but growing daily richer through the increase of his flocks
and herds. His expenses are almost nothing, and as he gets older, wealth
increases upon him. The events in his life consist of an occasional
trip on "commando," against s