I Don't Wonder At It; For
The Old Dutch Families ARE GENTLEFOLKS Of The Good Dull Old School,
And The English Colonists Can Scarcely Suit Them.
In the few
instances in which I have succeeded in thawing a Dutchman, I have
found him wonderfully good-natured; and the different manner in
which I was greeted when in company with the young doctor showed
the feeling at once.
The dirt of a Dutch house is not to be
conceived. I have had sights in bedrooms in very respectable
houses which I dare not describe. The coloured people are just as
clean. The young doctor (who is much Anglicised) tells me that, in
illness, he has to break the windows in the farmhouses - they are
built not to open! The boers are below the English in manners and
intelligence, and hate them for their 'go-ahead' ways, though THEY
seem slow enough to me. As to drink, I fancy it is six of one and
half a dozen of the other; but the English are more given to
eternal drams, and the Dutch to solemn drinking bouts. I can't
understand either, in this climate, which is so stimulating, that I
more often drink ginger-beer or water than wine - a bottle of sherry
lasted me a fortnight, though I was ordered to drink it; somehow, I
had no mind to it.
27th. - The cart could not be got till the day before yesterday, and
yesterday Mrs. D- arrived in it with two new Irish maids; it saved
her 3l., and I must have paid equally.
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