A Boer town is not laid out on systematic lines, as one sees towns in
America, or Canada, or Australia. The streets seem to run much as they
please, or as the exigencies of traffic have caused them to run. I doubt if
the plan of a town is ever drawn in this country. People arrive and settle
down in a happy-go-lucky manner, and straightway build themselves a home.
Their homes are places to live in; not to look at. There is an almost utter
absence of architectural adornment everywhere. My eyes range over a large
number of dwellings. They are nearly all alike--plain, square structures,
plastered snow white. There is a double door in the centre of the front,
and a window at each side of the door. A stoep, about six feet wide, rises
a foot from the pathway, and there is nothing else to be seen from the
outside front. These houses look bare and bald, and are as expressionless
as a blind baby. To me most houses have an expression of their own. In an
English town a quiet walk in the dawning, making a survey of the
dwelling-places, always leaves the impression that I have gleaned an
insight into the character of the dwellers therein. The cheeky-looking
villa, with its superabundance of ornament, is a monument in masonry to the
successful mining jobber on a small scale. The solemn-looking, solid
dwelling, standing in its own grounds, where every flower bush has its
individual prop, where the lawn is trimmed with mathematical exactitude,
and not one vagrant leaf is allowed to stray, speaks with a kind of
brick-and-mortar eloquence of virtue that has never grasped the sublime
fulness of the Scriptural text which saith: "The way of transgressors is
hard!" That is the home of the middle-aged Churchman, whose feet from
infancy have fallen amidst roses. He has never erred, because he has never
known enough of human sympathy and human toil and struggle to feel
temptation. The coy little cottage further on, surrounded by climbing roses
and sweet-smelling herbs, where the gate is left just a little bit open, as
if inviting a welcome, seems to advertise itself as the home of two maiden
sisters, who, though past the giddy girlhood stage, still have hopes of
being somebody's darling by-and-by.
But in a Boer town most of the piety is knocked out of a man. You stare at
the houses, and they stare back at you dumbly. There is nothing pretentious
or rakish about any of them; no matter how riotous a man's imagination
might be, he could never conjure up a "wink" from a Boer house, though I
have seen houses in other parts of the world that seemed to "cock an eye"
at a passing traveller and invite him to try the door.
They have only two styles of roofing their dwellings--either the
old-fashioned gable roof, or the still older kind of "lean-to," the latter
being nothing but a flat top, high at the front and running lower towards
the back, in order that the rain water may carry off rapidly. They paint
their doors and windows a sober reddish brown, for your true Boer has an
utter contempt for anything gaudy or gay. He leaves that sort of thing to
his nigger servants, who make up for their master's lack of appreciation in
the matter of colour by rigging themselves out in anything that is
startling in the way of contrasts, for if the white master is a Puritan in
such things, the nigger servant, male and female, is a perfect sybarite.
Right opposite where I am sitting a family group, or all that is left of
the family, is sitting, as the custom is at evening, out on the stoep. On
the side nearest me is a young widow. I have made inquiries concerning her.
Her husband was killed fighting against our troops at Graspan. She, poor
thing, is dressed in deepest mourning. Her dress is made of some heavy
black material, and has no touch of white or any colour anywhere to relieve
its sombre shades. On her head she wears a jet black cap, which rises high
and wide, and falls around her neck and shoulders. The cap is fashioned
much after the style of the sun bonnets worn by the peasant women of
Normandy, but hers is black, black as the grave. She has rather a nice
face, a good woman's face, pale and refined by suffering. No one looking at
her can doubt that she has suffered, and suffered as only such women can,
through this brutal, bloody war. I thought of the widows away in our own
land as I looked at her sitting there, so silently and sadly, with her thin
white hands clasped on the black folds of her lap. On one hand I plainly
saw the gold circle shining, which a few months ago had meant so much to
her; now, alas! only the outward and visible sign of all she had been and
of all that she had lost. Behind her the snow-white wall of the house,
sparkling in the red rays of the setting sun; at her feet only the white
slate of the stoep. And well enough I knew that under the proud Empire flag
many a widow as young and as heart-broken as this Dutch girl would watch
the sun go down as hopelessly as she, and I could not help the thought
which sprang to my soul--God's bitter curse rest on the head of the man, be
he Boer or Briton, who brought about this cruel war.
On the street in front of the house where the widow sat I noticed a group
of niggers. Some of them were merely local "boys," who worked for the
townspeople. They were dressed in the usual nigger fashion, in old store
clothing, patched or ventilated according to the wearer's taste. One fellow
had on a pair of pants that had at some former stage belonged to a man
about four times his size. The portion of those pants which is usually
hidden when a man is sitting in the saddle had been worn into a huge hole,
which the nigger had picturesquely filled by tacking on a scarlet shawl. As
the pants were made of navy blue serge the effect was unquestionably
artistic, especially as the amateur tailor had done his sewing with string,
most of the stitches running from an inch to an inch and a half in length.
Still, he was only one of many in similar case, so that he did not feel in
the least degree lonely. There were other niggers there--"boys" belonging
to the mule-drivers of the army. These "boys" nearly all sported a military
jacket and some sort of field service cap, which they had picked up somehow
in camp. The "side" these niggers put on when they get inside odds and ends
of military wearing apparel is something appalling. They swagger around
amongst the civilian niggers, and treat them as beings of a very inferior
mould, whilst the lies they tell concerning their individual acts of
heroism would set the author of "Deadwood Dick" blushing out of simple
envy.
The nigger girls cluster round these black veterans like flies around a
western water hole in midsummer, and their shrill laughter makes the air
fairly vibrate as they bandy jests with the cheeky herds. The girls are
rather pleasing in appearance, though far from being pretty. As a rule,
they wear clean print dresses and white aprons; they never wear hats of any
kind, but coil a showy kerchief around their heads in coquettish fashion.
They are not particular as to colour, red, blue, yellow, or pink, anything
will do as long as it is brilliant. The skins of the girls are almost as
varied as the headgear. The Kaffir girl is very dark, almost black. The
bushman's daughter is dirty yellow, like river water in flood time. Some of
the other tribes are as black as the record of a first-class burglar, but
they have bright black eyes, which they roll about as a kitten rolls a ball
of wool in playtime.
But whether they are black, brown, or coffee-coloured, they are all alike
in one respect--every daughter of them has a mouth that is as boundless as
a mother's blessing, and as limitless as the imagination of a spring poet
in love. When they are vexed they purse that mouth up into a bunch until it
looks like a crumpled saddle-flap hanging on a hedge. When they are pleased
the mouth opens and expands like an indiarubber portmanteau ready for
packing; that is when they smile, but when they laugh their ears have to
shift to give the mouth a chance to get comfortably to its destination.
They have beautiful teeth, the white ivory showing against the black
foreground like fresh tombstones in an old cemetery on a dark night. It is
amusing to watch them flirting with the soldier niggers. They try to look
coy, but soon fall victims to the skilful blandishments of the
vain-glorious warriors, and after a little manoeuvring they put out their
lips to be kissed, a sight which might well make even a Scotch Covenanter
grin. They suck their lips in with a sharp hissing breath; then push them
out suddenly, ready for the osculatory seance, the lips moving as if they
were pushed from the inside by a pole. The "boys" enjoy the picnic
immensely. As a matter of fact, these "boys" always seem to me to be doing
one of four things. They are either eating, smoking, sleeping, or making
love; and they do enough love-making in twenty-four hours to last an
ordinary everyday sort of white man four months, even if he puts in a
little overtime. One of the most charming things noticeable about a Boer
town is the plenitude of trees in the streets. They are often ornamental,
always useful for purposes of shade. There is no regularity about their
distribution; they seem to have been planted spasmodically at odd times and
at odd positions. There is little about them to lead one to the belief that
they receive over much care after they have been put into the soil. I have
found a very creditable library in pretty nearly every Boer town that I
have visited, and it is a noteworthy fact that all of our most cherished
authors find a place on their book-shelves. One other thing I have also
noticed, which, though a small thing in itself, is yet very significant. In
nearly every hotel, and in many of the public places, portraits of our
Queen and members of the Royal Family have been hanging side by side with
portraits of notable men, such as Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Mr.
Chamberlain, and Mr. Rhodes. During the course of the war all kinds and
conditions of Boers have had free access to the rooms where those portraits
were to be seen, but now I find that no damage has been done to any of
those pictures, excepting those of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain. This has
not been an oversight on the part of the Boers, for I defy any person to
find a solitary picture of the two last-named gentlemen that has not been
hacked with knives. But the Queen and Royal Family photos have in every
case been treated with respect.