For the same reason he speaks in low
tones. He must often be discussing indifferent topics, but he always
looks as if he were hatching a swindle. There is also a curious look of
waxworks about his over-washed hands.
This is the type that you would probably notice most. The Stock Exchange
of Johannesburg is their hatching-place and hot-bed; but from there they
overflow freely among the seaside towns, and are usually to be found in
the big hotels and the places you would be most likely to go to. Cape
Town at the present moment is flooded with them. But these are only the
mere froth of the South African Colonial breed. The real mass and body
of them consists (besides tradesmen, &c., of towns) of the miners of the
Rand, and, more intrinsically still, of the working men and the farmers
of English breed all over the Colony. It is from these that the fighting
men in this quarrel are drawn. It is from these that our corps, for
instance, has been by the Major individually and carefully recruited;
and I don't think you could wish for better material, or that a body of
keener, more loyal, and more efficient men could easily be brought
together.
Many of them are veterans, and have taken part in some of the numerous
African campaigns--Zulu, Basuto, Kaffir, Boer, or Matabele. They are
darkly sunburnt; lean and wiry in figure; tall often, but never fat (you
never see a fat Colonial), and they have the loose, careless seat on
horseback, as if they were perfectly at home there.
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