and its inhabitants, therefore, fetch the principal part of their timber
from the forests beyond Bruyntjes Hoogte, from those growing on the
Bosch-bergen (Forest Mountains), and from the borders of Kafferland,
about the Baviaan’s rimer (Baboon’s river). Doors and tables, and
the larger beams, were here observed to be all of Geelhout (Yellow-
wood) ; but the rafters were of willow, which is found to answer
sufficiently well for this purpose, and is more easily attainable by the
colonists living northward of the Snow-mountains, and, who find the
banks of the Groote rimer, as they here call the Nugariep where it
abounds, a much shorter and easier journey.
From the immense number of cattle kept on these farms, their
manure accumulates in the fold, to a great thickness ; and this, from
time to time, is cut into square pieces in the manner of peat, and
appeared to answer the purpose of fuel equally well. The walls of
these cattle-pounds, are at many farms here, built entirely of such
pieces of manure piled up to dry; and which go by the name of
mest-koek (manure-cake). This fuel produces a strong heat; but gives
out a disagreeable smell, until it is well ignited.
At this house, there resided one of those itinerant tutors
of whom some account has been given on a former occasion. * He
was a man of ingenuity, and of some experience of the world, having
been in the Dutch service at Malacca, and Batavia, and having
passed some time at Moccha in Arabia. He was related, he said,
to an opulent family of the same name in Cape Town. At this
farm he had been nearly a twelvemonth, employed in giving instruction
to three sons of Vermeulen, who, besides these, had five other
childrTehni.s meester, as he was called, (that is ; schoolmeester, or schoolmaster)
considered it part of his profession, like the meester at
Pieter Jacobs’s, to let every person know the extent of his acquirements.
But this was done without any inordinate share of vanity;
and, I confess, I was not sorry at his making this display; for,
although there was nothing which any person but a Cape meester
would boast of, it was an agreeable relief from the monotony of a
conversation on agricultural subjects, the only topics which generally
are to be expected at such farm-houses. He exhibited some small
drawings which, he told me, were done entirely with the juice of
the petals of a species of oxalis producing a blue color, of the tint
of indigo. He had very ingeniously made pencils from the hair of
the springbuck; and as far as my present stock of drawing materials
would permit, I was glad at being able to supply his wants, by furnishing
him with a few camels-hair pencils and a piece of China-ink.
With these be employed himself in the evening in making a copy
of my drawing of the rhinoceros. His powers in penmanship were
not despicable; and as a proof of steadiness of hand and of good
sight, he gave me a piece of paper on which, by the naked eye, he
had written the ‘ Lord s Prayer’ twice in a circular space of less than
seven tenths of an inch in diameter.
At night I sat down with the family to a hot supper of mutton ;
to which were added, a salad of cucumbers, and a large bowl of
milk: this last being usually the concluding dish at a boor’s supper.
The description, in the former volume, of Peter Jacobs’s dwelling
and of his whole establishment, will convey a tolerably just idea
of the place. The rooms in the principal house being but three (that
is, one in the middle in which the family sit and take their meals,
and one bed-room at each end) a visitor could not be accommodated
with a chamber to himself. A bed was therefore prepared for me,
in the same apartment with the meester and his three scholars.
This tutor was in every respect, qualified for finishing their
education, and for completing them for Dutch farmers; for a man
who does not smoke, is a rare phenomenon in this colony, and is
generally looked upon by the boors as an imperfect creature ; a disadvantage
which I myself laboured under, but which, for want of
any natural talent for this accomplishment, I was never able to overcome.
I might perhaps have partly retrieved my character in their
estimation, could I even have shown them that I enjoyed it in taste;
or even in smell, by exhibiting both nostrils blackened, and hermetically
closed, with that elegant and fashionable dirt, called in
m