as the only caste or military aristocracy privileged to carry arms, very much like the Samouris nobles of Japan, who from of old until recently had represented the feudal estate, and had made quite a famous cult of personal bravery, chivalry and devotion to their Mikado and for their independent caste.  Long intercourse and inter-marriage with a Boer family would ultimately remove the barrier.  With such rooted exclusiveness it is only in accord with Boer nature to be reluctant in admitting Uitlanders to burgher franchise, and the greater their numbers and influence of wealth the more would they be viewed as an innovating menace and their admittance to political equality be resisted.

Upon newly occupied farms a Boer will always seek to locate one or more squatters of his own nation upon allotments ultimately intended for the occupation of some of his own children as soon as they are grown up.  The usual conditions for privileges of residence, grazing, and cultivation are that the squatter builds a dwelling and does all the other permanent improvements at his own cost, that he accounts to the owner for half or one-third of all products raised, and that he and his family should render services whenever required.  When the squatter acquires land of his own he will in turn adopt similar feudal methods to get it improved and to obtain services without expense.  Should the conditions accorded to the squatter result in advantages which prove any way lucrative to him, the owner would in nine cases out of ten immediately impose more exacting conditions, upon the plea of making provision for his own children.  Such dependants are otherwise treated with familiar equality, as are also other white employees, and are admitted at the common table like any of the family, but below the salt.

To acquire farms is a Boer’s greatest ambition.  The love of land is his special passion, so that his children also may be independent owners of farms.  Formerly such land acquisitions were made by encroachments upon the possessions of natives or by purchases from them and by barter, and failing those means, by conquest.  Since 1885, however, the stipulations in connection with the Anglo-Swaziland settlement effectually barred expansion and encroachments in any direction.  The Boers resent this check as an exceedingly sore point.  There is not enough land for the sons who have since grown up.  These cannot possibly compete with the educated Hollanders in quest of good positions, nor are they taught any handicrafts, and the galling prospect is inevitable that they will have to content themselves with very humble stations in life, dependent even upon the more prosperous Uitlanders.  No wonder these Boers fell an easy prey to the seductions and deceptive fallacies of the Afrikaner Bond doctrine of conquest, for dispossessing England of her Colonies, and to resume a free hand for expansion northwards as well.