CHAPTER IX.

Character of the South African Boer.

A Peculiar Type--Mixture of Huguenot and Netherlands' Dutch--Divergence Between the Permanent Settler at the Cape and the Emigrant Farmer in the Two Republics--Good Qualities and Bad Curiously Mixed--A Keen Desire for Independence in the Form of Isolation--A Patriotism Bred of Ignorance and Cultivated by Prejudice--A Love of Liberty for Himself and of Slavery for Inferiors--The Possessor of Intense Racial Sentiment and of Sincere Religious Bigotry--Modification of these Qualities in Cape Colony by Education and Political Freedom--Moderate Expression of them in the Orange Free State as a Result of President Brand's Policy--Extreme Embodiment of them in the Transvaal--The Dutch Hatred of Missionaries--Dr. Livingstone on Dutch Character and Customs--Throughout South Africa the Dutch Masses are Slow and Sleepy, Serious and Somewhat Slovenly, Averse to Field Labour, Ignorant of External Matters and Without Culture--The Transvaal Boer the Most Active, Hardy and Aggressive in Character--Hatred of the English and His Wandering Life the Chief Reason--Morality and Immorality--Different Types of Dutch--Kruger and Pretorius, Joubert and Steyn--Hofmeyr and DeVilliers, Representative of the Higher Culture of Cape Colony