This condiment is
cynically known as married life. In the _voorhuis_ of Boschendaal
lay nineteen fine leopard skins, and Mr. Louw, the courtly mannered
old farmer, who would be described by his countrymen as an "oprechter
Burger," explained to me in slow and laborious English that he had
killed every one of these leopards with his own hand within one mile
of his own house.
A most attractive land were it not for the aridity. Should I settle
there I should be forever regretfully recalling the lush greenery of
English meadows in June, or of English woods in spring-time.
Just conceive of Van der Stel's astonishment when he first reached the
Cape! He must have been used to a small, dead-flat, water-logged land,
with odoriferous canals at every turn, and thousands of windmills
pumping day and night for all they were worth to keep the country
afloat at all; after a voyage of seven thousand miles he found himself
in a land of mighty mountain ranges, of vast, illimitable distances,
parched by a fierce sun, and nearly waterless. It must have needed
immense courage to start the founding of a New Holland in such (to
him) uncongenial surroundings. As a tribute to the adaptable South
African climate, I may say that I have myself seen, on Sir Thomas
Smartt's well-watered farm, apple trees and orange trees fruiting and
ripening in the same field.
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