who lived about fifteen miles from our station, on a fine farm called
Maraisfontein. I say he was a Boer, but, as may be guessed from both
his Christian and surname, his origin was Huguenot, his forefather, who
was also named Henri Marais--though I think the Marais was spelt rather
differently then--having been one of the first of that faith who
emigrated to South Africa to escape the cruelties of Louis XIV. at the
time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Unlike most Boers of similar descent, these particular Marais--for, of
course, there are many other families so called--never forgot their
origin. Indeed, from father to son, they kept up some knowledge of the
French tongue, and among themselves often spoke it after a fashion. At
any rate, it was the habit of Henri Marais, who was excessively
religious, to read his chapter of the Bible (which it is, or was, the
custom of the Boers to spell out every morning, should their learning
allow them to do so), not in the "taal" or patois Dutch, but in good old
French. I have the very book from which he used to read now, for,
curiously enough, in after years, when all these events had long been
gathered to the past, I chanced to buy it among a parcel of other works
at the weekly auction of odds and ends on the market square of
Maritzburg. I remember that when I opened the great tome, bound over
the original leather boards in buckskin, and discovered to whom it had
belonged, I burst into tears. There was no doubt about it, for, as was
customary in old days, this Bible had sundry fly-leaves sewn up with it
for the purpose of the recording of events important to its owner.

The first entries were made by the original Henri Marais, and record how
he and his compatriots were driven from France, his father having lost
his life in the religious persecutions. After this comes a long list of
births, marriages and deaths continued from generation to generation,