'I am Britz,' he said laconically, as the other touched the
outstretched hand indifferently.

'Ja!' said number one; 'I am Papenfus.'

The conversation ended here, and number two made a silent departure.

[Illustration: WAGGONS BRINGING WOOL TO EARLY MORNING MARKET
(JOHANNESBURG)]

The preliminary salutations of another pair of Boers are probably as
interesting. It was during a prolonged drought, and both gentlemen had
evidently experienced a difficulty in finding a sufficiency of
water for the purposes of ablution. They had not met for a number of
years, but the recognition was mutual.

'Almachtig, Gert, you are still as ugly as ever!'

'Ja!' replied the other readily; 'and you are still alive with that
face!'

The Boer is coarse in his conversation, although he prefers to regard
it as wit. He likes to participate in a conversation bristling with
this sort of wit, but when you come to tell him a really good thing,
he fails entirely to grasp the point, and your joke falls flat,
resulting usually in a painful silence.

He is also very chary of complications in the handling of money. He
brings his wool into town once, and sometimes twice, a year, and that