- bited about their own homesteads. There are always coloured
people about, living in adjacent huts,—very probably within the precincts of the same courtyard. For with the white children there are always to be seen black children playing. Nor does there seem to be any feeling of repugnance at such intercourse on the part of any one concerned. As such children grow up no doubt they are required to work, but I have never seen among the Dutch any instance of personal cruelty to a coloured person;—nor, during my travels in South Africa, did any story of such cruelty reach my ear. The Dutchman would I think fain have the black man for his slave,—and, could he have his way in this, would not probably be over tender. But the feeling that the black man is not to be personally ill-used has I think made its way so far, that at any rate in the Orange Free State such ill-usage is uncommon.
In regard to the question of work, I found that in the Free State as in all the other provinces and districts of the country so much of the work as is done for wages is invariably done by coloured people. On a farm I have seen four young men working together,—as far as I could see on equal terms,—and two have been white and two black; but the white lads were the Boer's sons, while the others were his paid servants. Looking out of a window in a quiet dreary little town in the Free State I saw opposite to me two men engaged on the plastering of a wall. One was a Kafir and the other probably was a west coast Negro. Two or three passed by with loads on their shoulders. They were Bechuanas or Bastard Hottentots. I strolled out of the
