speak of them as simple pious farmers! I call them, both from their
appearance and their actions, as unmitigated a set of ruffians as are to
be found on the face of the globe," Cairns exclaimed passionately.

They were indeed as unsavoury in appearance as they were brutal in
manner. Water is scarce in the Transvaal, and is used most sparingly for
all purposes of cleanliness. The Boer sleeps in his clothes, gives
himself a shake when he gets up, and his toilet is completed, unless on
very exceptional occasions when he goes outside the door to the water-
cask, fills his hands with water, and rubs them over his face.

Four times in the year, however, the Boers indulge in a general wash
before starting with their wives and families for four or five days'
stay at the nearest town to attend the services of the church and to do
their quarter's marketing. In dress the Boer is almost universally
slovenly, his clothes hang about him stained and discoloured by long
usage. In the majority of cases he is altogether without education, and
very many Boers are scarcely able to sign their names. Most of them wear
beards and long unkempt hair. But in point of physique they are fine
men, tall and powerfully, though loosely, built, but capable of standing
great fatigue if necessary, although averse to all exercise save on
horseback. All are taught to shoot from boyhood, and even the women in
the country districts are trained in the use of firearms, for it is not
so long since they lived in dread of incursions by the Zulus and Swazis.

There was no attempt whatever at uniformity of dress. Most of the men
wore high riding boots. Some of the young men from the towns were in
tweed suits, the vast majority wore either shooting jackets or long
loose coats; some were in straw hats, but the elder men all wore large
felt hats with wide brims. They were all, however, similarly armed with