Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/301

 in the audience greatly enjoyed it My friend, the Boer lawyer, says the Orange Free State is much more prosperous now than before the war, although for two years afterwards it seemed hopelessly wrecked. But the British government loaned the people money, and they soon recovered. The Boer lawyer made another statement that surprised me; he said that taxes are lower now than when the Orange Free State was a republic, and that every citizen has as many liberties as he had then, and more opportunities to prosper. This is rather an unusual statement for a captured subject of a republic to make about a government headed by a king I never knew until the Boer lawyer told me that a good many Boers—possibly forty—have been given titles by the English king. The chief justice of the South-African supreme court, which meets at Bloemfontein, is a "Lord," and there are many inferior titles, such as "Sir." The negroes of Bloemfontein are compelled to live in what the English call "locations;" that is, in villages where there are no whites. We visited one of these today, and found the blacks had all kinds of shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. In front of one of the grocery stores was about the biggest pile of watermelons I have ever seen The vegetable market of Bloemfontein is in the public square of the town, and the vegetables are hauled in with ox teams. Negro women pick up the droppings of the cattle, and take the stuff home in baskets and pans carried on their heads. Reaching home, they plaster it against the sides of their houses to dry, and afterwards use it for fuel. Every negro