From the Personal Reference Library of PAUL IVES ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY New York State Colleges OF Agriculture and Home Economics AT Cornell University THE GIFT OF Paul Pomeroy Ives 2d IN MEMORY OF Paul Pomeroy Ives "T-»ate uue Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924066713011 G3| co! ol a>i col Oi HOME LIFE OSTRICH FARM, Ibome %itc on an ©stricb jfarm BY ANNIE MARTIN W/rfl- TEJV ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1891 6h sn E 6530 Authorized Edition. To T. M. IN KBMEMBRANCE OF OUR SOUTH AFRICAN LIFE. PKEFACE. Some portions of the chapters on " Ostriches " and " Bobby " have already appeared, in an abridged form, in the Saturday Review. Part of the chapter on " The Climate of the Karroo " has also appeared in the St. James's Gazette. By the kind permission of the editors of both papers I am now enabled to reprint these pagea A. M. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. PAGE Early ambitions realized — Voyage to South Africa — Cape Town and Wynberg — Profusion of flowers— Port Klizabeth — Christmas decorations — Public library — Malays — Walmer — Hottentot huts — Our little house — Pretty gardens — Honey-suckers — Flowers of Walmer Common — Wax-creeper — Ixias — Scarlet heath — Natal lilies — " Upholstery flower " — Ticks — Commence ostrich-farming — Counting the birds — A ride after an ostrich 9 CHAPTER II. SOMK OF OUR PETS. Friendliness of South African birds and beasts — Our secretary bird — Ungainly appearance of Jacob — His queer ways — Tragic fate of a kitten — A persecuted fowl — Our Dikkops — A baby buffalo — Wounded buffalo more dangerous than lion — ^A lucky stumble — Hunter attacked by "rogue" buffalo— A midnight ride — Followed by a lion — Toto — A pugnacious goose — Souih African climate dangerous to imported dogs — Toto and the crows — Animals oflered by Moors in exchange for Toto aj CHAPTER III. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. We move up-country — Situation of farm — Strange vegetation of Karroo district — Karroo plant — Feibosch — Brack-bosch — Our flowers— J]^«/6foo/«— Bitter aloes— Thorny plants — fVacht-een- Beetje — Ostriches killed by prickly pear— Finger-poll— Wild tobacco fatal to ostriches — Carelessness of colonists — Euphor- bias — Candle-bush ... ... ... ... ... ... 46 CHAPTER IV. OUR LITTLE HOME. Building operations — A plucking— Ugliness of Cape houses — Our rooms— Fountain in sitting-room a failure — Drowned pets — Decoration of rooms — Colonist must be Jack-of-all-trades — Cape waggons — Shooting expeditions — Strange tale told by Boer 61 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. PAGB Cape Colony much abused —Healthy climate— Wonderful cures of consumption— Karroo a good place for sanatorium — Rarity of illness and accidents— The young colonist — An independent infant— Long droughts— Hot winds— Dust storms— Dams- Advantage of possessing good wells— Partiality of thunder- storms—Delights of a brack roof -Washed out of bed— After the rain — Our horses — Effects of rain indoors — Opslaag — The Cape winter — What to wear on Karroo farms 72 CHAPTER VI. OSTRICHES. An unwilling ride — First sight of an ostrich farm — Ridiculous mistakes about ostriches — Decreased value of birds and feathers — Chicks — Plumage of ostriches — A frightened ostrich — The plucking-box — Sorting feathers — Voice of the ostrich — Savage birds—" Not afraid of a dicky-bird !" — Quelling an ostrich^ Birds killed by men in self-defence — Nesis — An undutiful hen — Darby and Joan — A disconsolate widower — A hen-pecked husband — Too much zeal — Jackie — Cooling the eggs — The white-necked crow — Poisoning jackals — Ostrich eggs in the kitchen — A quaint old writer on ostriches — A suppliant bird — Nest destroyed by enraged ostrich — An old bachelor ... g8 CHAPTER VII. OSTRICHES (continued). Vagaries of an incubator — Hatching the chicks — A bad egg — Human foster mothers — ^Chicks difficult to rear— "Yellow- liver" — Cruel boys — Chicks herded by hen ostrich — Visit to Boer's house — A carriage full of ostriches— " The melancholy Jaques" — Ostriches at sea — A stampede — Runaway birds — Branding — Stupidity of ostriches — Accidents — Waltzing and fighting— Ostrich soup — An expensive quince — A feathered Tantalus — Strange things swallowed by ostriches — A court- martial — The ostrich, or the diamond ? — A visit to the Zoo ... 130 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER VIII. MKF.RKATS. PAGE Meerkats plentiful in the Karroo — Their appearance — Intelligence — Fearlessness — Friendship for dogs — A meerkdt in England — Meerk;it an inveterate thief — An owl in Tangier — Taming full- grown meerkat — Tiny twins— A sad accident — Different char- acters of meerkats — The turkey-herd — Bob and the meerkat— "The Mouse" 157 CHAPTER IX. BOBBY. Bobby's babyhood — Insatiable appetite — Variety of noises made by Bobby — His tameness — Narrow escape from drowning — A warlike head-gear — Bobby the worse for drink — His love of mischief— He disarms his master — Meerkat persecuted by Bobby — Bobby takes to dishonest ways — ^He becomes a prisoner —His clever tricks— Death of Bobby 170 CHAPTER X. OUR SERVANTS. A retrospective vision — Phillis in her domain — Her destructiveness — Her ideas on personal adornment — The woes of a mistress- Eye-service —Abrupt departure of Phillis — Left in the lurch — Nancy and her successors — Cure of sham sickness — The thieCs dose — Our ostrich-herd — A bride purchased with cows — English and natives at the Cape— Character of Zulus and Kaffirs 182 CHAPTER XI. HOW WE FARED. Angora goats —Difficulty of keeping meat — The plague of flies — Rations— Our store — Barter — Fowls — Chasing a dinner — Fowls difficult to rear — Secretary birds as guardians of the poultry-yard — ^Jacob in the Karroo— He comes down in the world— He dies — Antelopes — A springbok hunt — The Queen's birthday in the Karroo — Colonial dances — Our klipspringer — Superstition about hares— Game birds — Paauw — Knorhaan — Namaqua partridges — Porcupines — A short-lived pet — Indian corn — Stamped mealies — Whole-meal bread— Plant used for making bread rise — Substitutes for butter — Priembesjes — A useful tree — Wild honey — The honey-bird— Enemies of bees — Moth in bees' nests — Good coffee — Sour milk 203 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. KARROO BEASTS, BIRDS AND REPTILES. PAGB Leopard drowned in well— Baboons— Egyptian sacred animals on Cape farms — "Adonis" — A humiliatiag retreat — A baby baboon — Clever tricks performed by baboons — Adonis as a Voorlooper—K four-handed pointsman — Sarah — A baboon at the Diamond Fields — Adonis's shower-bath — His love of stimulants — His revengeful disposition — Pelops the dog-headed — Horus — Aasvogeh — Go.\t-sucker — The butcher-bird's larder — Nest of the golden oriole— The kapok-bird — Snakes in houses — A puff-adder under a pillow — Puff-adder most dan- gerous of Cape snakes— Cobras — Schaapsikier—\5^y house- lizards — Dassie-adder — The dassie the coney of Scripture — Stung by a scorpion — Fight between tarantula and centipede — Destructive ants — The Aardvaark, or ant-bear — Ignominious flight of a sentry — Ant-lion — Walking-leaves — The Hottentot god — A mantis at a picnic 237 CHAPTER XIII. OUR NEIGHBOURS. Hospitality of Cape colonists — Cheating and jealousy in business — Comfortless homes — Spoilt children — Education — The " Schoolmaster " — Convent schools — A priest-ridden nation — The Nachimaal — Old French names — A South African duke in Paris — Fine-looking men — Fat women — Ignorance of Yrouws — Boers unfriendly to English — A mean man ... ... 266 CHAPTER XIV. GOOD-BYE. Recalled to England — Regrets and farewells — Cape horses lacking in intelligence — "Old Martin" — A chapter of accidents — A horse ''after Velasquez" — The Spy's revenge — Virtues and faults of Cape horses — Horse-sickness— Good-bye to Swaylands —Kaffir crane — The voyage home — Dogs in durance — St. Helena— A visit to Longwood — Home again 277 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I. — Troop of Ostriches and Cart, with Prickly- Pear Leaves for food Frontispiece. II. — I. Jacob. 2. Toto Facing fage 26 III. — Some of the best kinds of Ostrich-bush: — 1. Brack-bosch. 2. Ghanna. 3. Fei-bosch. „ 48 IV, — Our Sitting-room „ 66 v.— Ostriches in a Hot Wind „ 80 VI.— Ostrich-chicks „ 104 VII. — I. Ostrich-chick (Photographed from case in Stanley and African Exhibition) — 2. Ostriches meditating Escape through de- fective fence „ 150 VIII.— A Meerkat „ 158 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. CHAPTER I. PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. Early ambitions realized — ^Voyage to South Africa — Cape Town and Wynberg — Profusion of flowers — Port Elizabeth — Christmas deco- rations — Public library — Malays — Walmer — Hottentot huts — Our little house — Pretty gardens — Honey-suckers — Flowers of Walmer Common — ^Wax-creeper — Ixias — Scarlet heath — Natal lilies — "Upholstery flower" — Ticks— Commence ostrich-farming — Count- ing the birds — A ride after an ostrich. In the year 1881, leaving our native land wrapped in the cold fogs of November, my husband and I started for South Africa; where it was the intention of the former to resume the occupation of ostrich-farming, engaged in which he had already spent many years in the Cape Colony. It was my first visit to South Africa, and I was looking forward with great pleasure to the realization of a very early wish ; for the adventures of settlers in far-off lands had always from childhood been my favourite reading, and I had become firmly convinced that a colonial life would suit me better than any other. Nor have I been disappointed ; but. 10 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. looking back now on our life in South Africa, I can truthfully say that, though certainly lacking in ad- venture, it has — unlike many things long wished for and attained at last — in no way fallen short of my expectations. The few hours we spent at Madeira were unfortu- nately during the night; and the beautiful island I was so lonarincr to see remained hidden from view in a most tantalizing manner, without even the moon- light to give us some faint outline of its far-famed loveliness. After a safe, but most uneventful voyage, enlivened by no more stirring incidents than the occasional breaking down of the engines, we at last looked up at the glories of Table Mountain, and came suddenly into summer ; enjoying the flowers and bright sunshine of Cape Town all the more after the dreary weather we had left in England. We landed, and spent a few very pleasant days at the pretty suburb of Wynberg, from whence we took several beautiful drives. On one occasion we left the carriage, and walked over such a carpet of lovely and bright-coloured wild flowers as I have only once seen equalled, when riding some years before through Palestine and Syria. At the end of five minutes we stopped, and counted all the different sorts we had gathered, finding twenty-eiorht. Another day we collected a number of leaves of the silver tree, which is found only on Table Mountain. The long, pointed leaves seem made of the glossiest pale-grey satin; you can write and paint on their soft PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. ll surface, and numbers of them are for sale in the Cape Town shops, adorned with highly-coloured pictures of Table Mountain, steamers going at full speed, groups of flowers, Christmas good wishes, etc. We preferred, however, when enclosing the leaves in our letters home, to send them in all their native beauty, and with no clumsy human attempts at improvement. The beautiful plumbago is one of the most common plants, and many of the hedges about Wynberg con- sist entirely of it ; the masses of its delicate blue-grey flowers forming as graceful a setting for the pretty, neatly-kept gardens as can well be imagined. We were quite sorry when the time came for going back to our steamer. Port Elizabeth being our destina- tion. We landed there a few days before Christmas ; and, soon after our arrival, walked out to Walmer to call on friends, whom we found busily engaged in deco- rating the little church. Their materials consisted simply of magnificent blue water-lilies — evidently the sacred blue lotus of the ancient Egyptians, with the sculptured representations of which they are identical — and large, pure white arums, or, as the colonists unromantically call them, " pig -lilies ; " both being among the commonest of wild flowers about Walmer. These, with a few large fern-fronds, and the arum's own glossy leaves, formed the loveliest Christmas deco- ration I have ever seen. There is not much to see in Port Elizabeth ; indeed, it is rather uglier than the generality of colonial towns. built simply for business, and wit,h no thought of the 2 18 HOME LIFE ON AS OSTRICH FARM. picturesque — and what few attempts at ornament have been made are rather disfiguring than otherwise. On a bare hUl above the town there is a conspicuous monument, the builders of which appear to have been long undecided as to whether it should be a small pyramid or large obelisk ; the result being an ugly compromise between the two. Another work of art, more nearly approaching the obelisk form, but equally far from the Egyptian model both in its shape and in the designs which decorate it, stands in the market- place, in front of the town hall. This latter was by far the best-looking building in Port Elizabeth, until, a few years ago, its appearance was completely spoilt by the addition of an ugly and ponderous clock-tower, quite out of proportion to the rest of the structure, which it seems threatening to crush with its over- powering size and weight. The interior of the town hall, however, compensates for its outward deficiencies ; for it contains a most excellent public library, plenti- fully supplied with books of all kinds, newspapers, and magazines, in two comfortable and well-arranored rooms. It would be well indeed if England would take a lesson from the Cape Colony in this respect ; for in all the smaller towns which we visited, i.e., Cradock, Graaff- Reinet, Uitenhage, etc., we found good public libraries. There is a good club in Port Elizabeth, and several hotels, all of which we have tried at diflferent times, finding the Standard (Main Street), though small and of unpretending exterior, by far the most comfortable. A little way out of the town there is a very wood PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 13 botanical garden, with a large conservatory, containing many beautiful palms, tree-ferns, and other tropical plants. The Malays are the most picturesque feature of Port Elizabeth ; and their bright-coloured Eastern dresses, and the monotonous chant of the priest announcing the hours of prayer from the minaret of the mosque, form a pleasing contrast to the surrounding everyday sights and sounds. Like most other Orientals, they are perfect artists in their appreciation of colour ; and, fortunately, they are still old-fashioned enough not yet to have adopted the hideous coal-tar dyes with which Europe has demoralized the taste of some of their brethren in Cairo and Algiers. On Fridays, when all are wearing their best, you often see the most beautiful materials, and the loveliest combinations of colour; especially in the flowing robes of the priests, the tints of which always harmonize perfectly. Thus, for instance, you will see an outer garment of turquoige blue, worn over an inner one of " old gold ; " delicate salmon colour over soft creamy white ; rich orange in combination with the deepest maroon ; with an infinite variety of other lovely tints, any of which a painter might covet for his studio. The Malays often wear as turbans some of the beautiful sarongs of Java, which are simply ordinary calico, painted by hand with a few good colours, and in the most artistic designs ; of course there are never two alike, and in these days of machine- made sameness they are refreshing to behold. Some of the men wear immense hats, made of palm leaves 14 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. very firmly and solidly plaited, and tapering to a point ; they are made to fit the head by means of a small crown fixed inside, very like that of a college cap. The Malay women, instead of gliding about veiled to the eyes, like their Mohammedan sisters in other parts of the wprld, wear the quaint costume which was the fashion among the Dutch women at the time when the Malay race first came as slaves to the Cape. The waist of the dress is extremely short ; and the long and voluminous skirts, of which an infinite number seem to be worn, commence close under the arms, spreading out, stiffly starched and spotlessly clean, to dimensions rivalling those of the old hooped petticoats. The good- natured brown faces are most unbecomingly framed by bright-coloured silk handkerchiefs tightly bound under the chin, somewhat after the fashion of the Algerian Jewesses — giving the wearers an appearance of per- petual toothache. Many of the women wear noisy wooden clogs ; kept from parting company with the bare feet by nothing but a kind of large button, curiously ornamented, projecting between the two first toes. In the early days of slavery, when the Malays were brought up in the Dutch families, nearly all were Christians ; and even so recently as when Sir Bartle Frere was governor there were comparatively few among them who could read the Koran. During the last few years, however, Mohammedanism has been rapidly gaining ground everywhere— the great uni- versity of El Azhar in Cairo, especially, training thou- PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 15 sands of students to go out as emissaries into all parts of the East to make converts — and the Malays, in constantly increasing numbers, are embracing the creed of Islam, Many of them now save up their money for the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is their great ambition. They are very ignorant ; and their Moham- medan fatalism, prejudicing them against all sanitary precautions — especially vaccination — adds very much to the difficulty of contending with small-pox and other epidemics when they appear. In 1882, wlien there was so severe an outbreak of small-pox in Cape Town and other parts of the colony, the Malays not only opposed all attempts made by the authorities to isolate cases, but did all in their power to spread the disease ; many of them being found throwing infected clothing into houses. After staying about a week in the town, we went out to live at Walmer, which is by far the pleasantest part of all the surroundings of Port Elizabeth, and which deserves to be more generally chosen as a residence by the wealthier inhabitants. It stands high, in a most healthy situation, and full in the path of that rough but benevolent south-east wind, which, owing to its kindly property of sweeping away the germs of disease, is called "the Cape doctor." Away beyond Walmer stretch miles of undulating common, covered with short bush and numberless varieties of wild flowers ; and a breezy walk across part of this same common leads to Port Elizabeth. The walk is rather a long one ; and often, before the arrival of our little I6 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. " spider " from America, it would have been a comfort, after a long day in town, to avail ourselves of one of the numerous hired carriages for the return journey, were not the drivers of these veliicles so exorbitant in their charges as almost to rival those of New York. They demand ten shillings for the drive to Walmer, taking the passenger only one way ; and this too often in a vehicle so near the last stage of dilapidation as to suggest fears of the final collapse occurring on the road. The importunity of the drivers is most troublesome ; and when, in spite of their efforts, you remain obdurate, and they fail to secure you as a " fare," they do their best to run over you, hoping no doubt that they may thus at least have a chance of driving you to the 1 1 ospital. Their cab-stand, where, like a row of vultures, they sit waiting for their prey, is on the market-place ; and as you cross the latter, bound for the reading-room, with ears deaf to their shouts, and eyes resolutely fixed on the door of the town hall, leaving no doubt as to your intention not to take a drive, the whole rank move forward in a simultaneous charge ; pursuing and sur- rounding you with artful strategic movements and demoniac cries, and with so evident an intention to knock you down if possible, that when at last you stand safe on the town hall steps, you realize the feelings of Tam O'Shanter on gaining " the keystane of the brig." On the common, about half-way between Port Elizabeth and Walmer, there is a little group of Hottentot huts, shaped like large bee-hives, and made of the strangest building-material I ever saw, i.e., a PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 17 thick mass of the oldest and filthiest rags imaginable. How they hold together has always been a mystery to me ; for they flap and flutter ominously in the almost incessant wind, and seem threatening to wing their way across the common and invade the verandahs and gardens of Walmer. Although I have ventured into a good many queer human habitations in different parts of the world, I have never felt inclined to explore the interior of one of these huts, which look as forbidding as their ugly, yellow-skinned inmates. There is no window, no proper outlet for smoke, no room for any one of average figure to stand upright, and the hole which serves as a door is much too low for any more dignified entrance than on all fours — an attitude which, though quite worth while when threading the passages of the Great Pyramid, would hardly be repaid by the sight of the Hottentot in his home ; and by the possible acquaintance of creeping, crawling and hopping legions. Numbers of dirty, monkey-like children, and ugly, aggressive dogs of the pariah type, swarm round these huts ; the dogs often taking the trouble to pursue the passer-by a long distance on his way, irritating his horse and him- self by their clamour, and always keeping just out of reach of the whip. With the exception of the few remaining Bushmen, the Hottentots are the ugliest and most degraded of all the South African natives. The Kaffirs are much pleasanter to look at, some of the young girls being rather nice-looking, with graceful, figures, on which i8 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. blankets of a beautiful artistic terra-cotta colour are draped in folds worthy of an Arab burnous. Occasion- ally some of the red ochre with which the blankets are coloured is daubed over the face and head, the effect being rather startling. The slender, bronze-like arms are often completely hidden from wrist to elbow by a long spirally-twisted brass wire, looking like a succes- sion of the thinnest bangles quite close together. We found a comfortable little furnished house at Walmer, in which we spent the first five months after our arrival. It was just a convenient size for our small party, consisting, besides my husband and myself, of our two English servants, and Toto, a beautiful collie. The rooms were all on the ground floor ; shaded, and indeed almost darkened, by a broad verandah running the whole length of the front. This absence of suffi- cient light in nearly all colonial houses strikes the new-comer unpleasantly ; but one gets used to it, and in the heat and strong glare of the Cape summer the darkened rooms are restful and comforting. At one end of our verandah we made a little fernery, which we kept green and bright with trophies brought home from some of our longer walks and rides — also an aviary, the little inhabitants of which kept up a constant chorus, always pleasant to hear, and never loud enough to be troublesome. The Cape canary is a greenish bird, with a very pretty soft note, quite different from the piercing screech of his terrible yellow brother in English homes. Another soft-voiced little singer is the rooibeck, or red-beak, a wee thing very PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 19 like an avadavat ; a few goldfinches completed our col- lection, and all were very tame and happy in their little home. The broad leaves of two fine banana- plants shaded birds and ferns from the sun, which otherwise would have beaten in on them too fiercely through the window of the verandah. A banana-plant is a delightful thing to cultivate ; it grows so rapidly, and is so full of health and strength ; and the unfold- ing of each magnificent leaf is a new pleasure. We were within a short walk of our friends' house ; and during the frequent absences of T , my husband, often away for several weeks at a time while search- ing in different parts of the country for a suitable farm, it was very pleasant for me to have kind neigh- bours so near, and a bright welcome always awaiting me. Their garden was a large and beautiful one, and its luxuriance of lovely flowers, roses especially, gave ample evidence of their mistress's own care and love for them. Nearly all the houses in Walmer have good gardens, enclosed by the prettiest of hedges, sometimes of pomegranate, plumbago, or passion flowers, but most often of tall American aloes, round the sweet flowers of which the pretty honey-suckers — magnified hum- ming-birds, substantial instead of insect-like — are con- tinually hovering, their jewelled dresses of green, red, and yellow flashing in the sun at every turn of their rapid flight. Close under the hedge, and shadeJ by the aloe's blue-green spikes, the white arums grow in the thickest profusion. No dining-table in Walmer need be without a simple and beautiful decoration, for 20 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. if there is no time for a ramble in search of flowers on the surrounding common, you need only run out and pick a few arums from the nearest hedge or small stream ; and a few of them go a long way. But the treasures of the common are endless ; and first and loveliest among them all is the little " wax- creeper," * than which, tiny as it is, I do not think a more perfect flower could be imagined. It is as modest as a little violet ; and you have to seek it out in its hiding-places under the thick foliage of the bushes, round the stems of which it twines so tightly that it is a work of some time to disentangle it. You also get many scratches during the process, for it loves to choose as its protectors the most prickly plants ; but w^hen at last you hold the delicate wreath in your hands, and look into its minute beauties — the graceful curves of the slender stalk and tendrils, no two of which ever grow alike ; the long, narrow, dark-green leaves ; and the clusters of brilliant, carmine-tinted flowers, each like a tiny, exquisitely-shaped vase cut out in glistening wax — you are amply rewarded. It is indeed one of the masterpieces of nature, and the first sight of it was a pleasure I can never forget. This little flower does not bear transplantino-. We often tried to domesticate it in our garden, but the plants invariably died. It was quite the rarest of all our flowers. We have never seen it anywhere but about Walmer, and there it grows only in small patches ; five * Microloma lineare. PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 21 or six. plants close together, and then perhaps no more of them to be seen durins: the whole of a Ions walk. Another of our favourites was the aantblom, a kind of ixia, whose lovely flowers range through all possible shades of rose-colour and orange, from the deepest to the palest tints of pink and yellow, down to the purest white. A large bouquet of nothing but these delicate, fragile-looking blossoms, each one of a diflerent shade, brought to us by some little neighbours soon after our arrival, was a delightful surprise. So also was the first finding of the sweet Cape jessamine growing wild ; but this is one of the rarer plants. Then there is the scarlet heath ; its cluster of large, velvet-like flowers so vivid in colouring as to look like a flame of fire when the sun comes glancing through it. It is the most beautiful of all the Cape heaths, numer- ous and lovely as they are — though a delicately-shaded pink and white one comes very near it in beauty. The blue lobelias grow profusely all over the common ; they are much larger and finer than those in English gardens, and are of the deepest ultra-marine, only a few here and there being a very pretty pale blue. Occasionally — but this is very rare — ^you find a pure white lobelia. Another flower of our home gardens, the gazania, is very plentiful, the ground being every- where studded with its large, bright orange-coloured stars. Pink and white iTumortelles, gladioli, ixias, and irises of all kinds abound ; some of the latter are tiny specimens, yet they are pencilled with all the same 22 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. delicate lines as the larger sorts, though on so small a scale that you almost need a magnifying glass to enable you to see all their beauties. Then there are the Natal lilies, growing in large round clusters, each in itself sufficient to fill a flower-vase ; you have but to break a thick, succulent stem, and a perfect, ready-made bouquet of pink, sweet-scented flowers is in your hand Some of the plants about Walmer are more curious than beautiful ; one especially — which, not knowing its real name,* we called " the upholstery flower " — is like an enormous tassel of red or pink fringe, gaudily ornamented outside with a stifi" pattern in green and brown. It is about seven or eight inches long, solid and heavy in proportion ; and looks as if in the fltness of things it ought to be at the end of a thick red and green cord looping up the gorgeous curtains of an American hotel. The flower is shaped like a gigantic thistle, but the plant on which it grows is a shrub, with a hard, woody stem, and laurel-like leaves. These are only a few specimens of the common's wealth of flowers ; each time we went out we brought home a diflerent collection, and our little rooms were bright with that intensity of colouring which makes the great difference between these children of the sun and the flora of colder climates. A search for flowers on the common, or, indeed, a walk anywhere about Walmer, is attended by one very unpleasant penalty — you invariably come home covered with ticks. There are several varieties of these tor- * We have since found that this plant is a Protea. PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. 23 mentors ; the tiny, almost invisible ones being by far the worst and most numerous, and their bites, or rather their presence beneath one's skin, causing in- tense irritation. The large ticks, though they do not confine their attentions wholly to animals, are much more troublesome to them than to the human race, and our poor horses, dog, and other creatures suffered terribly from their attacks. One day, soon after our arrival, 1 was much amused by the clumsy antics of a number of fowls, which were continually jumping up and pecking at some cattle grazing near. On investi- gation, I found that they were regaling on the fat ticks with which the poor animals were covered ; and our appetite for the Walmer poultry was considerably lessened by the discovery. Ticks abound everywhere along the coast, but as soon as you move inland you are free from the torment. We had not been very long in Walmer before T ■ commenced his ostrich-farming with the purchase of forty-nine young birds, most of them only a few months old, and all wearing the rough, black and grey plumage which, under the name of " chicken-feathers," forms the ostrich's clothing during the first three or four years of his life. We kept them at night in a small enclosure near the house, and during the day- time they grazed on the common, herded by a trouble- some little Kaffir boy, who required more looking after than all his charges. The business of counting the latter when they were brought home in the evening was by no means so easy as one would imagine, for the 24 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. tiresome birds did all in their power to hinder it, and if quiet enough before, seemed always prompted by some mischievous demon to begin moving about as soon as the counting commenced ; then, just when we were about half " through "■ — to use a convenient Americanism — they would get so hopelessly mixed up bhat we had to begin all over again. One day T and I had the excitement of an ostrich-hunt on horseback. One of our birds, which was much larger than any of the others, being nearly full-grown, and which liad to be kept separate lest he should ill-treat his weaker brethren, had got away, and we had a long ride after him ; T following him up by his spoor, or footprints, with as unerring an eye as that of a Red Indian, until at last we were rewarded by the sight of a small head and long snake-like neck above the distant bushes. Then came the very en- joyable but somewhat difficult work of driving our prisoner home. He would trot before us quietly enough for a while, with his curious springy step, tiU he thought we were off our guard, when he would make an abrupt and unexpected run in the wrong direction ; and a prompt rush, like that of the picador in a bull-fight, was necessary to cut off his retreat. The horses quite understood what they had to do, and seemed to enter into the spirit of it, and enjoy it as wo did. CHAPTER II. SOME OF OUR PETS. Friendliness of South African birds and beasts — Our Secretary bird — Ungainly appearance of Jacob — His queer ways — Tragic fate of a kitten — A persecuted fowl — Our Dikkops — A baby buffalo — Wounded buffalo more dangerous than lion — A lucky stumble — Hunter attacked by " rogue " buffalo — A midnight ride — Followed by a lion — Toto — A pugnacious goose — South African climate dangerous to imported dogs — Toto and the crows — Animals offered by Moors in exchange for Toto. South Africa is the land of pet animals. The feath- ered and four-footed creatures are all delightful. They have the quaintest and most amusing ways, and they are very easily tamed. The little time and attention which in a busy colonial home can be spared for the pets is always repaid a hundredfold ; and often you are surprised to find how quickly the bird or beast which only a few days ago was one of the wild crea- tures of the vddt — torn suddenly from nest or burrow, and abruptly turned out from the depths of a sack or of a Hottentot's pocket into a human home — has be- come an intimate friend, with a clearly-marked indi- vidual character, most interesting to study, and quite different from those of all its fellows, even of the same kind. On one point, however, the whole collection ia 25 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. sure to be unanimous, and that is a strong feeling of rivalry, and jealousy of one another, each one striving to be first in the affections of master and mistress. A great fondness for and sympathy with animals is not the least among the many tastes which T and I have in common ; and in our up-country home, far off as we were from human neighbours, we were always surrounded by numbers of animal and bird friends. We began to form the nucleus of our small men- agerie while still at Walmer ; and one of our first acquisitions was a secretary bird. The friends near whom we lived possessed three of these creatures, which had all been found, infants together, in one nest on an ostrich farm near Port Elizabeth ; and to my great delight, one of them was given to us. " Jacob," as we named him, turned out a most amusing pet. His personal appearance was decidedly comical ; re- minding us of a little old-fashioned man in a grey coat and tight black knee-breeches ; with pale flesh- coloured stockings clothing the thinnest and most angular of legs, the joints of which might have been stiff with chronic rheumatism, so slowly and cautiously did Jacob bend them when picking anything up, or when settling himself down into his favourite squatting attitude. Not by any means a nice old man did Jacob resemble, but an old reprobate, with evil-looking eye, yeUow parchment complexion, bald head, hooked nose and fiendish grin ; with his shoulders shrugged up, his hands tucked away under his coat-tails, and several Jacob. TOTO. SOME OF OUR PETS. 27 pens stuck behind his ear. Altogether an uncanny- looking creature, and one which, had he appeared in England some two or three centuries ago, would have stood a very fair chance of being burned aliVe in com- pany with the old witches and their cats ; indeed, he looked the part of a familiar spirit far better than the blackest cat could possibly do. Yet with all his diabolical appearance, Jacob was very friendly and affectionate, and soon grew most absurdly tame — too tame, in fact. He would come running to us the moment we appeared in the verandah, and would follow us about the garden, nibbling like a puppy at our hands and clothes. He would walk, quite uninvited, iato the house, where his long-legged ungainly figure looked strangely out of place, and where he was much too noisy to be allowed to remain, although the broadest of hints in the shape of wet bath-sponges, soft clothes-brushes, Moorish slippers, and what other harmless missUes came to hand, were quite unavailing to convince him he was not wanted. The noisy scuffle and indignant gruntings attendant on his forcible expulsion had hardly subsided before he would reappear, walking sedately in at the first door or window available, as if nothing had happened. His objectionable noises were very numerous ; and some of them were unpleasantly suggestive of a hos- pital. He would commence, for instance, with what seemed a frightful attack of asthma, and would appear to be very near the final gasp ; then for about ten minutes he would have violent and alarming hiccups ; 3 28 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. the performance concluding with a repulsively realistic imitation of a consumptive cough, at the last stage. His favourite noise of all was a harsh, rasping croak, which he would keep up for any length of time, and with the regularity of a piece of clockwork ; this noise was supposed to be a gentle intimation that Jacob was hungry, though the old impostor had probably had a substantial feed just before coming to pose as a starving beggar under our windows. The monotonous grating sound was exasperating; and, when driven quite beyond endurance, T would have recourse to extreme measures, and would fling towards Jacob a large dried pufF-adder's skin, one of a collection of tropliies hang- ing on the walls of our cottage. The sight of this always threw Jacob into a state of abject terror. He seemed quite to lose his wits, and would dance about wildly, jumping up several feet from the ground in a grotesque manner ; till at last, grunting his loudest, and with the pen-like feathers on his head bristlinor with excitement, he would clear the little white fence, and go off at railway speed across the common, where he would remain out of sight all the rest of the day ; only returning at dusk to squat solemnly for the night in his accustomed corner of the earden. His dread of the puff-adder's skin inclined us to doubt the truth of the popular belief in the secretary's usefulness as a destroyer of snakes, on account of which a heavy fine is imposed by the Cape Govern- ment on any one found killing one of these birds. I certainly do not think Jacob would have faced a full- SOME OF OUR PETS. 29 grown puff-adder, though we once saw him kill and eat a small young one in the garden, beating it to death with his strong feet, and then swallowing it at one gulp. He was like a boa-constrictor in his capa- city for " putting himself outside " the animals on which he fed — ^lizards, rats, toads, frogs, fat juicy locusts, young chickens, alas ! and some of the smaller pets if left incautiously within his reach, even little kittens — all went down whole. The last-named animals were his favourite delicacy, and he was fortunate enough while at Walmer to get plenty of them. His enormous appetite, and our difficulty in satisfying it, were well known in the neighbourhood, and the owners of several prolific cats, instead of drowning the superfluous pro- geny, bestowed them on us as offerings to Jacob. They were killed and given to him at the rate of one a day. Once, however, by an unlucky accident, one of them got into his clutches without the preliminary knock on the head ; and the old barbarian swallowed it alive. For some minutes we could hear the poor thing mew- ing piteously in Jacob's interior, while he himself stood there listening and looking all round in a puzzled manner, to see where the noise came from. He evi- dently thought there was another kitten somewhere, and seemed much disappointed at not finding it. One day, when there had been a great catch of rats, he swallowed three large ones in succession, but these were almost too much even for him ; the tail of the last rat protruded from his bill, and it was a long time before it quite disappeared from view. The butcher 30 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. had orders to bring liberal supplies for Jacob eveiy day, and the greedy bird soon learned to know the hour at which he called. He would stand solemnly looking in the direction from which the cart came, and as soon as it appeared, he would run in his ungainly fashion to meet it. Jacob was largely endowed with that quality which is best expressed by the American word " cussedness ; " and though friendly enough with us, he was very spite- ful and malicious towards all other creatures on the place. He grew much worse after we went to live up- country, and became at last a kind of feathered Ishmael ; hated by all his fellows, and returning their dislike with interest. Some time after we settled on our farm we found that he had been systematically in- flicting a cruel course of ill-treatment on one unfortu- nate fowl, which, having been chosen as the next victim for the table, was enclosed, with a view to fattening, in a little old packing-case with wooden bars nailed across the front. Somehow, in spite of abundant mealies and much soaked bread, that fowl never would get fat, nor had his predecessor ever done so ; we had grown weary of feeding up the latter for weeks with no result, and in despair had killed and eaten him at last — a poor bag of bones, not worth a tithe of the food he had consumed. And now here was another, ap- parently suffering from the same kind of atrophy ; the whole thing was a puzzle to us, until one day the mystery was solved, and Jacob stood revealed as the author of the mischief. He had devised an ingenious way of per- SOME OF OUR PETS. 31 secuting the poor prisoner, and on seeing it we no longer wondered at the latter's careworn looks. Jacob would come up to his box, and make defiant and insulting noises at him — ^none could do this better than he — until the imbecile curiosity of fowls prompted the victim to protrude his head and neck through the bars ; then, before he had time to draw back, Jacob's foot would come down with a vicious dab on his head. The foolish creature never seemed to learn wisdom by ex- perience, though he must have been nearly stunned many times, and his head all but knocked off by Jacob's great powerful foot and leg ; yet as often as the foe challenged him, his poor simple face would look in- quiringly out, only to meet another buffet. As he would not take care of himself, we had to move him into a safe place ; where he no longer died daily, and was able at last to fulfil his destiny by becoming respect- ably fat. One day T returned from bathing, his Turkish towel, instead of being as usual filled with blue lotus for the dining- table, showing very evident signs of living contents ; and two of the queerest little birds came tumbling out of it. They were young dikkops, a little covey of which he had surprised near his bathing-place. They possessed very foolish, vacant faces ; and their large, round, bright yellow eyes were utterly void of expression, just as if a bird-stuffer had furnished them with two pairs of glass eyes many sizes too large. Their great thick legs, on the enormously swollen-looking knee-joints of which they squatted in 32 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. a comical manner, were just as much out of proportion as tlie eyes, and of the same vivid yellow ; indeed, the bird-stuffer seemed to have finished off his work with a thick coating of the brightest gamboge over legs and bill. They had no tail to speak of, and their soft plumage was of all different shades of brown and grey, very prettily marked. The dikkop (a Dutch name, meaning " thickhead "), is a small kind of bustard, and is by far the best of the many delicious game-birds of South Africa. It is a nocturnal bird, sleepy during the daytime, but lively and noisy at night — as we soon found to our discomfort. Not being able to decide at once on a place for our newly-acquired specimens, we put them into our bedroom for the first night, but they were soon awake— so, alas ! were we — and their plaintive cry, sounding incessantly from all parts of the room as they ran restlessly to and fro, speedily obliged us to turn them out. We found permanent quarters for them at the end of the verandah, opposite the fernery, where my American trunks — too large to go into the house — had been placed. These we arranged to form a little enclosure, in which the dikkops were safe from the voracious Jacob, who would soon have swallowed them, legs and all, if he had had the chance. One, evidently the smallest and weakest of the covey, we named Benjamin ; but, unlike his Scriptural name- sake, he received rather a smaller than a larger portion of the good things of this world, the greedy Joseph taking advantage of his own superior size and strength to get the lion's share of all the food, and Benjamin SOME OF OUR PETS. 33 meekly submitting ; till we iaterfered, and by separa- ting the two at feeding-time ensured an equal division. Joseph's general conduct was cruel and unbrotherly ; and when one day, during the process of packing to move up-country, he came to an untimely end, being accidentally crushed under the heaviest " Saratoga," we naturally expected Benjamin to rejoice. Instead of this, however, the little fellow pined and fretted ; refusing to eat, and calling incessantly with his little mournful cry of three soft musical notes in a minor key, as if hoping to bring back his oppressor — from whom he ouffht to have been thankful to be free — and at the end of two days he also was dead. During one of T 's journeys up-country he made a strange purchase, which he forwarded at once to me by train. It was a baby buffalo, which had been taken alive by the hunters who shot its mother. The buffalo being a rare animal in the Cape Colony, we looked on this little specimen as a great acquisition ; and, had he lived, he would have been a very valuable, though perhaps in time somewhat formidable addition to the menagerie ; but the railway officials to whose care he was consigned being no exception to the generality of Cape colonists — whose usual way of doing business is to let things take care of themselves — the poor little fellow was put into the train without being fastened or secured in any way, and the jolting he received en route knocked him about so that he arrived in a very .sad state, with his head cut and bleeding in several places ; and did not live many days. 34 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. The buffalo is considered by all hunters a far more dangerous animal to encounter than the lion, and almost as formidable as the elephant or rhinoceros. When wounded, he has an ugly trick of lying in wait, hidden in the bush, with only his nose out ; and turning the tables on the pursuer by making an unexpected charge. Many hunters have been killed in this manner by infuriated buffaloes. When T was hunting in the interior some years before, a friend who was there with him met with an exciting adventure. Having come across a herd of buffaloes he fired into the midst of them ; then, unaware that he had wounded one of the animals, he rode in pursuit of the herd. On coming up with them, he dismounted, and was just preparing to fire again, when a shout from his brother, who was behind, made him look round, just in time to see the wounded buffalo, which had emerged from the bush, charging him fu- riously. He gave him both barrels, each shot striking him ia the centre of the forehead ; but, as the buffalo always charges with his nose in the air, both bullets glanced off, and Mr. B escaped only by a quick jump on one side. The buffalo passed him ; then turn- ing round, tossed and killed the horse. The next shot finished the buffalo's career ; and on the great head, which has been kept as a trophy, are the marks of the two first bullets, showing how calm was the presence of mind, and how true the aim, in that moment of danger. Another of T 's hunting companions, chased in a SOil/E OF OUR PETS. 35 similar manner by a wounded buffalo, owed his life to a lucky stumble, which so astonished the animal that he stood still f oi* a few seconds staring at the prostrate figure; giving the hunter time to get up and take refuge behind a tree, from whence he shot his assailant. The most dangerous buffaloes are the old solitary bulls which have been turned out of the herd ; they become as artful and malicious as rogue elephants, and often hide in the bush when they get your wind, to rush out on you unexpectedly. On another of T '3 hunting expeditions, on the river Sabie, not far from Delagoa Bay, one of the party was walking quietly along with his rifle over his shoulder, when he was suddenly attacked by one of these "rogues," and so frightfully gored that for a time he was not expected to live. T started off at once to fetch a doctor ; and rode all through the night, steering his course by the stars, to an encampment which most fortunately happened to be within about thirty miles. It was that of a party who were bringing up a number of 'mitrail- leuses and other arms, taken in the Franco-Prussian war and presented by Germany to the Transvaal Gov- ernment. In the camp there were an immense number of donkeys, which were used for the transport of the guns ; and when one commenced braying, all the others immediately following suit, it was a Pandemonium which made night hideous indeed. On retracing his course the next day, accompanied by the doctor, T ■ saw by the spoor that during that midnight ride he had been followed by a lion. 36 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. And now, though the transition seems rather an abrupt one from savage beasts to the sweetest and gentlest of domestic pets, our dear old dog Toto deserves a little notice. We brought him from England with us — he is a dog of Kent, being a native of the Weald — and when put on board the steamer at Southampton he was not many months old. He still had the blunt nose and thick paws of puppyhood ; also its mischievous little needle-like teeth, with which he ate off the straps of our portmanteaus, and, when allowed an occasional run on deck, did considerable damage to the Madeira chairs of the passengers. Fortunately he was so general a favourite that his iniquities were overlooked. The children on board were especially fond of him, and would often petition for him to be let loose, to join in their games. He seemed to grow up during the voyage — possibly the sea air hastened his development— and he had almost attained full size and perfect proportions by the time we landed in Cape Town ; he, poor fellow, being in such wild delight at finding himself again on terra firma and released from the narrowness of ship life, that he was quite mad with excitement, jumping and dragging at his chain, and knocking us nearly off our legs, besides involving us and himself in numerous entanglements with the legs of others. We had to be perpetually apologizing for his conduct, and really felt quite ashamed of him. He is a large black-and-tan collie ; with a soft glossy coat, a big black feather of a tail, and the most superb SOME OF OUR PETS. 37 white frill ; of which latter he is justly proud, drawing himself up to show it off to the best advantage when- ever it ia stroked or admired. Altogether he is a very vain dog, quite conscious of his good looks. His big, honest, loving brown eyes have none of that sly, shifty look which gives a treacherous appearance to so many collies ; his face, which is as good and kind as it is pretty, has a great range of expression, and it is wonderful to see how instantly it will change from a benevolent smile, or even a downright laugh, to a pathetic, deeply injured, or scornful look, if Toto considers himself slighted or insulted. We have to study his feelings carefully, for he is proud and sensi- tive even beyond the usual nature of collies; and if we have been unfortunate enough to offend him — as often as not quite unintentionally — he will give us the cut direct for several days ; repelling all advances with the most freezing indifference, and plainly, though always politely, for he is a thorough gentle- man, intimating his wish to drop our acquaintance. Sometimes we are puzzled to know why Toto is haughty and distant towards us, or ignores our existence; and, on looking back, recall perhaps that so long ago as the day before yesterday one of us, in the hurry of daily work, finding his large form obstructing the door through which we had to pass, told him, somewhat impatiently, to get out of the way. Or perhaps — worse still — we may have laughed at him. Possibly the mouse he was chasing on the veldt popped into the safety of a hole just as he had all but 38 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. caught it, and we unfeelingly made a joke of his dis- appointment — or, in his excessive zeal to hold himself very upright when sitting up to beg at dinner, dear Toto may have leaned back just a little too far and rolled over on to his back ; a painXal position for so majestic an animal, and one which ought to have com- manded respectful silence, instead of provoking an unkind laugh. This misfortune has happened several times to poor Toto, especially during the process of learning his threefold trick of sitting up to beg, " asking " — with a little short bark — for bone or biscuit, and finally catching the contribution in his mouth. It is really difficult to refrain from laughing at his sudden collapse, preceded as it always is by an extra self-satisfied look — just the expression of the doc in Caldecott's " House that Jack built," as he sits smiling and all-unconscious of the cow coming up behind to toss him. A conceited protrusion of Toto's big white shirt-frill is usually the occasion of fallincr, and no doubt he deserves to be laughed at ; but the poor fellow's evident distress, and his " countenance more in sorrow than in anger " at our cruel mirth, have led us to make great effbits to keep our gravity, and, with true politeness, to pretend not to see him. Though Toto is not generally a demonstrative dog, there is no mistake about his affection for us ; he shows it in many quiet little sympathetic ways, and seems even more human than the generality of collies. He has constituted himself my special guardian and pro- tector, and though at all times a very devoted attendant, SOME OF OUR PETS. 39 he would always take extra care of me whenever, during T 's journeys about the country, I was left at home alone. Then the faithful old fellow would not leave me for an instant. The silent i>ympathy with which he thrust his nose lovingly into my hand cheered the dreary moment when, after watching T out of sight, I turned to walk back to the lonely house ; and his quiet unobtrusive presence enlivened all the weeks of solitude. He would lie at my feet as I sat working or writing ; follow me from room to room or out of doors, always close at my heels ; and curl himself up to sleep under my bed, when at any time during the night the slightest word or movement On my part would produce a responsive "tap, tap," of his tail upon the floor. And when his master returned, he always seemed to look to him for approbation ; his whole manner expressing his pride in the good care he had taken of house and mistress. Our garden at Walmer was constantly invaded by neighbouring fowls and ducks, which would lie in wait outside, ready to slip in the instant the little gate was left open ; the fowls of course found plenty of occupa- tion among the flowers ; while the ducks would at once make for a large tub, generally full of photographic prints taking their final bath under a tap of slowly- trickling water. The horrid birds seemed to take a delight in driving their clumsy bills through the soft, sodden paper ; and after several prints from our best negatives had been destroyed, we summoned Toto to our aid. He threw himself with great energy into the 40 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. work of ridding us of the intruders. He would lie in ambush for them, and when, much to his delight, they appeared inside the gate, he would rush to the attack, chasing first one and then another about the garden till he caught it ; then, lifting it and carrying it out in his mouth as gently as a cat carries her kitten, he would deposit it outside, with much angry quacking or frightened screeching from the victim, as the case might be, but without the loss of a feather. Once he, in his turn, was attacked by a pugnacious goose, which he was endeavouring to drive out of the garden ; and which turned on him savagely, keeping up a desperate battle with him for a long time, until it was quite exhausted, and sat down panting. It chased him many times round our small lawn, and once, in its excitement, put its head right into his mouth. Luckily for the goose, Toto was so utterly bewildered by its strange conduct, that he missed the golden opportunity of snapping ofl'the imbecile head so invitingly presented. He was equally zealous in keeping the garden free from cats ; and in pursuit of one of these he actually climbed so far into the lower branches of a tree that his victim, evidently expecting to see him come all the way to the top, gave himself up for lost, and dropped to the ground in a fit. Imported dogs often die in South Africa ; especially if they remain near Port Elizabeth, or if they have distemper, which is much more severe in the colony than it is in Europe. Poor Toto laboured under both these disadvantages ; for during our stay at VValmer he SOME OF OUR PETS. 41 ■was attacked with distemper, and, the summer being also- an unusually hot one, everything seemed against him. He was so ill that we quite gave up all hope of saving him, and bitterly regretted having brought him out with us. Just when he was at his worst, however, business called us away for a few days to Cradock, which is some distance inland ; and T , knowing it to be a healthy place for dogs, suggested that we should take the poor creature with us — dying as he seemed to be — on the slight chance that the change of climate might save him. We left him there — parting from him sadly and without much hope of seeing him again ; but we were leaving him in the kindest of hands, and, thanks to the careful nursing he received, as well as to the timely change of air, he lived — indeed, I am glad to say, lives still. He remained some months at Cradock, whence from time to time came the good news of his steady improvement, and finally, some time after we had settled up-country, the announcement that he would be sent off to us at the first opportunity. Then, one day as we sat at dinner, we heard a sudden and startling tumult in the kitchen ; the wel- comincr voices of the servants : a frantic scuffle outside the sitting-room door ; and in rushed Toto, handsomer and fuller of life and spirits than ever ; whining and howling with delight, and nearly upsetting us, chairs and all, besides endangering everytliing on the table, as he jumped wildly to lick our faces. He had been brought from Klipplaat by a passing waggon, in the usual " promiscuous " manner in which property, ani- 43 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. mate as well as inanimate, is delivered at its destina- tion on Cape farms. After thus paying his footing in South Africa nearly with his life, Toto was thoroughly acclimatized, and passed through several very hot summers on the farm without a day's illness; only showing by increased liveliness his preference for the cooler weather ; being very happy on the occasional really cold days of our short winter, and — like everyone else— cross during a hot wind. He has now accompanied us back to England, where — probably on the strength of being an old ■ traveller who has twice crossed the line — he gives himself great airs, and makes no secret of his contempt for the stay-at-home dogs who have not had his ad- vantages. This involves him in many fights ; and the brother and sister with whom — having no settled home in England — we have occasionally left him, have several times been threatened with summonses for his misdeeds. Toto is now getting on in years — those few years, alas ! which make up the little span of a dog's life — but he is still lively enough ; and the crows at Mogador, where we spent the winter of 1888-89, will long re- member the games they have had with that comical foreign dog, so unlike any of the jackal-like creatures to which they were accustomed. They knew him well, and always seemed to look out for him ; and, as soon as he emerged from the ugly white-washed gateway of the town, and approached their favourite haunt, the dirty rubbish-heaps just outside the walls, they would fly close up to him, challenging him to catch them. SOME OF OUR PETS. 43 Undaunted by invariable failure, he was always ready, and would dash noisily after them ; while they, enjoying the joke — for every crow is a fellow of infinite jest — liew tantalizingly along close in front of his nose, and only just out of his reach. Sometimes they would settle on the ground a long way oflf, and — apparently oblivious of him — become so deeply absorbed in search- ing for the choicest morsels of rubbish that Toto, deluded by the well-acted little play, would make a wild charge. But the artless-looking crows, who all the while were thinking of him, had accurately cal- culated time and distance ; and as he galloped up — • confident that this time at least he was really going to catch one — ^they would allow him to come within an inch of touching them before they would appear to see him at all ; then, rising slowly into the air — as if it were hardly worth the trouble to get out of his way— they would hover, croaking contemptuously, above his head, just out of reach of his spring. And when at last he was tired out with racing after them, and — being, like Hamlet, " fat and scant of breath " — could only fling himself panting on the sand, they would walk derisively all round him ; come up defiantly, close to his gasping mouth, and all but perch on him. Before we left, several of the native dogs had learned the game ; possibly their descendants will keep it up, and — who knows ? — some naturalist of the future may record his discovery of a strange friendship between dogs and crows in Mogador. From the latter place T made several expeditions 44 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. to the interior, travelling on foot and in native dress, for the purpose of distributing Arabic Testaments — on one occasion going as far as the city of Morocco. On these trips Toto accompanied his master, and — ^far from being the object of contempt and aversion, as a dog usually is in Mohammedan lands — was universally admired and coveted by the natives ; by some of whom — had T not eaten of their bread and salt, thus placing them on their honour— it is extremely likely that he would have been stolen. It was something quite new to them to see a dog actually fond of his master, and treated by the latter as a friend ; full of intelligence, too, and altogether different from their own uninteresting dogs ; his clever tricks — which seemed to them almost uncanny — earned him many a good feed ; and among the variety of animals offered at different times in exchange for him, were two donkeys, a horse, and a young camel. Toto can boast, too, of having spent many nights in quarters where probably never dog has slept before — ■ i.e. in Mohammedan mosques. These were the usual sleeping-places assigned to the travellers by the simple village folk, whose toleration contrasts strongly with the fanaticism of the towns. There the mosques are held very sacred ; and for Europeans to look in at their doors, even from across the street, gives great offence. » « * » « And now, as I write, the old dog — faithful and friendly as ever — sits up begging ; no lontrer con- ceitedly and unsteadily as in his youth, but in the SOME OF OUR PETS. 43 more sober fashion of the poor, fat, apoplectic-looking bears at the Zoo; with legs well spread out to afford the firm foundation needed by the portliness of ad- vancing years. His kind eyes are fixed very lovingly and deferentially on the tiny face of his present queen and mistress, the little fair-haired girl who has come to us since we left the Cape ; and who, with a regal air of command, holds out her biscuit to the seated Colossus, who, not so long ago, towered above her small head, and bids him " ask for it." Together these two friends and playfellows make so pretty a picture, that we could wish Briton Rivifere or Burton Barber were here to see it and give it to the world. CHAPTER III. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. We move up-country — Situation of farm — Strange vegetation of Karroo district — Karroo plant — Fei-bosch — Brack-bosch — Our flowers — ■ Speckboom — Bitter aUies — Thorny plants — Wacht-een-Bietje — Ostriches killed by prickly pear — Finger-poll — Wild tobacco fatal to ostriches — Carelessjiess of colonists — Euphorbias — Candle-bush. Our five months at Walmer passed so pleasantly, that in spite of my longing to be settled on a place of our own, and the impatience I felt to enter on all the duties and pleasures of farm life among the ostriches, I was really sorry when the time of departure came, and ia the beginning of winter — i.e. towards the latteir part of May — we left the little house, the first home of our married life, and took our journey up-country. We had no very long distance to travel, for the farm in the Karroo district which T had chosen was only a day's journey from " The Bay," as Port Eliza- beth, like San Francisco, is familiarly called; and instead of being, like many proprietors of farms, quite out of the world, and obliged to drive for two or even three days to reach the railway, we had our choice of two stations ; the nearest, Klipplaat, being only fifteen miles from us, and the railway journey not more than eight hours. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 47 Our farm, extending over twelve thousand acres, was situated in a long valley running between two ranges of mountains, the steepness of which rendered enclos- ing unnecessary in many parts ; thus saving much expense in starting the farm, an entirely new one, and chosen purposely by T on this account. For it sometimes happens that land on which ostriches have run for years becomes at last unhealthy for the birds. We were in that part of the Karroo which is called the Zwart Euggens, or "black rugged country;" so named from the appearance it presents when, during the frequent long droughts, the bush loses all its verdure, and becomes outwardly so black and dry- looking that no one unacquainted with this most curious kind of vegetation would suppose it capable of containing the smallest amount of nutriment for ostriches, sheep, or goats. But if you break one of these apparently dried-up sticks, you find it all green and succulent inside, full of a very nourishing saline juice; and thus, even in long droughts which some- times last more- than a year, this country is able ^to support stock in a most marvellous manner, of which, judging by outward appearance, it certainly does not seera capable. It seems strange that in this land of dryness the plants are so full of moisture ; one wonders whence it can possibly have come. The little karroo plant, from which the district takes its name, is one of the best kinds of bush for ostriches, as well as for sheep and goats ; it grows in little compact round tufts not more than seven or 48 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. eight inches from the ground, and though so valuable to farmers, it is but unpretending in appearance, with tiny, narrow leaves, and a little, round, bright yellow flower, exactly resembling the centre of an English daisy after its oracle has been consulted, and its last petal pulled by some enquiring Marguerite. The fei-hosch is another of our commonest and most useful plants ; its pinkish-lilac flower is very like that of the portulacca, and its little flat succulent leaves look like miniature prickly pear leaves without the prickles-; hence its name, from TurJc-fei, Turkish fig. When flowering in large masses, and seen at a little distance, the fei-bosch might almost be taken for heather. The brack'bosch, which completes our trio of very best kinds of ostrich-bush, is a taller and more grace- ful plant than either of the preceding, with blue-green leaves, and blossom consisting of a spike of little greenish tufts; but there are an endless variety of other plants, among which there is hardly one that is not good nourishing food for the birds. All are alike succulent and full of salt, giving out a crisp, crackling sound as you walk over them ; all have the same strange way of growing, each plant a little isolated patch by itself, just as the tufts of wool grow on the Hottentots' heads; and the flowers of nearly all are of the portulacca type, some large, some small, some growing singly, others in clusters; they are of different colours — white, yellow, orange, red, pink, lilac, etc. They are very delicate and fragile flowers ; A. Martin, Z?e/. Some of the Best Kinds of Ostrich-Bush. I. Brack-bosch, 2. Ghanna. 3. Fei-eosch. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 49 and, pretty as they are, it is useless to attempt carry- ing them home, for they close up and fade as soon as they are gathered. Indeed, nearly all the flowers in that part of the world are unsatisfactory ; and those few among them which will keep for a very short time in water are almost useless for table decorations, as they seem in- capable of adapting themselves to any sort or form of flower-vase. They are pretty enough in themselves ; but the large, thick, stubborn stems, all out of propor- tion with the flowers, refuse to bend themselves to any graceful form or combination ; they all seem starting away from one another in an angular, uncomfortable manner, and of course any pretty arrangement of flowers which will not arrange themselves is impossible. Our thoughts often went back longingly to the flowers of Walmer, compared with which proliflc region the Karroo is poverty indeed. A cineraria, very nearly as large as the cultivated varieties, and of a beautiful deep blue, on which the Dutch have bestowed the euphonious name of blaauw- blometje (little blue flower), several tiny irises, and a rather rare bulb, the hyacinth-like blossoms of which, as well as the upper part of the stalk, are of a lovely tint between scarlet and deep rose-colour, and all soft and velvety in texture, are among our prettiest flowers. Then there are the mimosa's balls of soft, sweet- scented yellow fringe, perfuming the air all round for a long distance, and making the trees seem all of gold 50 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. when covered with their masses of bloom. Here and there is a KaflSr Lean, a shrub with rather handsome large red flowers, but it is not common. There are a good many colourless, insignificant-looking flowers, and some which are quite uncanny ; one, especially, with pendent, succulent bells of livid green and dull red, looks worthy to be one of the ingredients of a witch's cauldron. These are all flowers of the plains ; the mountains are richer, but their treasures are only to be attained by making rather long excursions up their steep sides, over the roughest and stoniest of ground, and through a tangled mass of vegetation, most of which is very thorny. But even the weariest climb is well repaid on reaching the heights where the wild geraniums grow. The immense round bushes, five or six feet in diameter, and brilliant with great bunches of pink or scarlet flowers, are indeed a lovely sight. A creeping ivy-leaved geranium, and a very pretty pelargonium, which is also a creeper, grow in these same far-ofi" regions ; the flower of the latter is of a beautiful rich maroon and cream-colour, its curiously jointed stem and tiny leaves are very succulent, salt to the taste, and stfongly scented with the sweet gera- nium perfume. It is strange to notice how plants which in Europe are neither saline nor particularly succulent, when growing in the Karroo assume the prevailing character of its vegetation. Large white marguerites, growing on a shrub with a hard, woody stem, inhabit the same heights as the geraniums and pelargoniums ; all these together would PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 51 have been invaluable for the brightening of our little rooms, if we could possibly have brought them home. But they are all much too delicate to survive the long walk or ride back, and the only mountain flowers we could reasonably hope to bring home in a presentable condition were the large, bright yellow immortelles. The scanty little streams trickling down some of the cool shady kloofs between the mountains are the home of a few white arums ; and their rocky beds are fringed, though not very abundantly, with maiden- hair fern. The spekboom, which is a good-sized shrub, some- times attaining the height of fifteen or twenty feet, grows plentifully a little way up the mountains ; and in very protracted droughts, when the karroo and other bush of the plains begin at last to fail, it is our great resource for the ostriches, which then ascend for the purpose of feeding on it ; and though they do not care for it as they do for their usual kinds of food, it is good and nourishing for them. Elephants are very fond of the spekboom,, but though a few of these animals are still found near Port Elizabeth, there are fortunately none in our neighbourhood to make inroads on the supplies reserved for the ostriches against what certainly in South Africa cannot be called " a rainy day." The spekboom has a large soft stem, very thick, round, succulent leaves, and its clusters of star-shaped, wax-like flowers are white, sometimes slightly tinged with pink. There are several plants very closely re- sembling the spekboom ; one with pretty, bright yellow 5i HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. flowers; and one, the soft stem of which, if cut into thin slices, looks exactly like veiy red salt tongue. Those unpleasant old acquaintances of childish days, the bitter aloes, are at home in the Karroo in great numbers; and most brilliantly do they light up the somewhat gloomy-looking sides of the mountains in early spring with the great spikes of their shaded scar- let and orange-coloured flowers, looking like gigantic "red-hot poker plants." This African aloe has none of the slender grace of its American relative, and it is only when flowering that it has any claim to beauty ; at all other times it is simply a most untidy-looking plant, the thick, clumsy stem for about five or six feet below the crown of leaves being covered with the ragged, decaying remains of former vegetation, sug- gestive of numberless scorpions and centipedes. Thorny plants abound, especially on the mountains, where indeed almost every bush which is not soft and succulent is armed with strong, sharp, often cruelly hooked spikes. The wacht-een-beetje (wait-a-bit) does not grow in our neighbourhood, but we have several plants which seem to me no less deserving of the name ; and often, when held a prisoner on some ingenious arrangement of hooks and spikes viciously pointing in every possible direction, each effort to free myself in- volving me more deeply, and inflicting fresh damage on clothes and flesh, I should, but for T 's assurance to the contrary, have quite believed I had encountered it. The constant repairing of frightful " trap-doors '' and yawning rents of all shapes and sizes in T 's PLANTS OF THE KARROO, 53 garments and in my own, took up a large proportjon of time ; and often did I congratulate myself on the fact that my riding-habit at least — chosen contrary to the advice of friends at home, who all counselled coolness and lightness above everything — was of such stout, strong cloth as to defy most of the thorns. Any less substantial material would have been reduced to rib- bons in some of our rides. On foot, you are perpetually assailed by the great strong hooks of the wild asparagus, a troublesome enemy, whose long straggling branches trailing over the ground are most destructive to the skirts of dresses ; while boots have deadly foes, not only in the shape of rough ground and hard, sharp-pointed stones, but also in that of numerous prickly and scratchy kinds of small bush. At the end of one walk in the veldt, the surface of a kid boot is all rubbed and torn into little ragged points, and is never again fit to be seen. For- tunately, in the Karroo, no one is over-particular about such small details. Among our troublesome plants, one of the worst and most plentiful is the prickly pear; and farmers have indeed no reason to bless the old Dutchwoman who, by simply bringing one leaf of it from Cape Town to Graaif-Reinet, was the first introducer of what has be- come so great a nuisance. It spreads with astonishing rapidity, and is so tenacious of life that a leaf, or even a small portion of a leaf, if thrown on the ground, strikes out roots almost immediately, and becomes the parent of a fast-growing plant ; and it is not without great 54 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. trouble and expense that farms can be kept compara- tively free from it. Sometimes a little party of KafBi-s would be encamped on some part of our land especially overgrown with prickly pears ; and there for months together they would be at work, cutting in pieces and rooting out the intruders; piling the disjointed stems and leaves in neatly-arranged stacks, where they would soon ferment and decay. Labour being dear in the colony, the wages of " prickly-pear-men " form a large item in the expenditure of a farm ; in many places indeed, where the plants are very numerous, it does not pay to clear the land, which consequently becomes useless, many farms being thus ruined. Sometimes ostriches, with that equal disregard of their own health and of their possessor's pocket for which they are famous, help themselves to prickly pears, acquire a morbid taste for them, and go on indulging in them, reckless of the long, stiff spikes on the leaves, with which their poor heads and necks soon become so covered as to look like pin-cushions stuck full of pins; and of the still more cruel, almost invisible fruit-thorns which at last line the interior of their throats, besides so injuring their eyes that they be- come perfectly blind, and are unable to feed themselves. Many a time has a poor unhappy ostrich, the victim of prickly pear, been brought to me in a helpless, half-dead state, to be nursed and fed at the house. Undaunted by previous experience, I perseveringly tended each case, hoping it might prove the exception to the general rule, but never were my care and PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 55 devotion rewarded by the recovery of my patient. There it would squat for a few days, the picture of misery ; its long neck lying along the ground in a limp, despondent manner, suggestive of the attitudes of sea- sick geese and ducks on the first day of a voyage. Two or three times a day I would feed it, forcing its unwilling bill open with one hand, while with the other I posted large handfuls of porridge, mealies, or chopped prickly pear leaves in the depths of its capacious letter-box of a throat. All to no purpose ; it had made up its mind to die, as every ostrich does immediately illness or accident befalls it, and most resolutely did it carry out its intention. The prickly pear, mischievous though it is, is not altogether without its good qualities. Its juicy fruit, though rather deficient in flavour, is delightfully cool and refreshing in the dry heat of summer ; and a kind of treacle, by no means to be despised at those not in- frequent times when butter is either ruinous in price or quite unattainable, is made from it. A strong, coarse spirit, equal to the agvAxrdiente of Cuba in horrible taste and smell, is distilled from prickly pears ; and though to us it seemed only fit to be burned in a spirit-lamp, when nothing better could be procured, it is nectar to the Boers and Hottentots, who drink large quantities of it. Great caution is needed in peeling the prickly pear, the proper way being to impale the fruit on a fork or stick while you cut it open and remove the skin. On no account must the latter be touched with the hands, or direful con- 56 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. sequences will ensue. To the inexperienced eye the prickly pear looks innocent enough ; with its smooth, shiny skin, suggestive only of a juicy interior, and telling no tale of lurking mischief — yet each of those soft-looking little tufts, with which at regular intervals it is dotted, is a quiver filled with terrible, tiny, hair- like thorns, or rather stings ; and woe betide the fingers of the unwary " new chum," who, with no kind friend at hand to warn him, plucks the treacherous fruit. He will carry a lively memento of it for many days. My first sad experience of prickly pears was gained, not in South, but in North Africa. Landing with a friend in Algiers some time ago, our first walk led us to the fruit market, where, before a tempting pile of Jigues de Barbarie, we stopped to quench the thirst of our thirty-six hours' passage. The fruit was handed to us, politely peeled by the Arab dealer ; and thus, as we made our first acquaintance with its delightful coolness, no suspicion of its evil qualities entered our minds. And when, a few days later, adding the excite- ment of a little trespassing to the more legitimate pleasures of a country ramble, we caine upon a well- laden group of prickly pear bushes, we could not resist the temptation to help ourselves to some of the fruit — • and woeful was the result. Concentrated essence of stinging-nettle seemed all at once to be assailing hands, lips, and tongue ; and our skin, wherever it had come in contact with the ill-natured fruit, was covered with a thick crop of minute, bristly hairs, apparently grow- ing from it, and venomous and irritating to the last PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 57 degree. Our silk gloves, transformed suddenly into miniature robes of Nessus, had to be thrown away, perfectly unwearable ; and the inadvertent use of our pocket-handkerchiefs, before we had fully realized the extent of our misfortune, caused fresh agonies, in which nose as well as lips participated. For many a day did the retribution of that theft haunt us in the form of myriads of tiny stings. It was a long time indeed before we were finally rid of the last of them ; and we registered a vow that whatever Algerian fruit we might dishonestly acquire in future, it should not be figues de Barharie. In dry weather at the Cape these spiteful little stings do not even wait for the newly -arrived victim ; but fly about, light as thistle-down, ready to settle on any one who has not learned by experience to give the prickly pear bushes a wide berth. The leaves of the prickly pear are good for ostriches and cattle, though the work of burning oiF the thorns and cutting the leaves in pieces is so tedious that it is only resorted to when other food becomes scarce. One kind, the kafdblad, or " bald leaf," has no thorns. It is comparatively rare, and farmers plant and cultivate it as carefully as they exterminate its troublesome relative. Another kind of cactus, which, if the beautiful forms in Nature were utilized for artistic purposes half as much as they deserve to be, would long since have been recognized as a most perfect model for a graceful branched candlestick, is used as food for cattle during 5S HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. long droughts, being burnt and cut up in the same manner as the prickly pear. When the plant is in flower, each branch of the candlestick seems tipped with a bright yellow flame. Another of our many eccentric-looking plants, the finger-poll, is also used in very dry seasons to feed cattle ; the men who go about the country cutting it up being followed by the animals, which are very fond of it, but which, owing to its excessive toughness, are un- able to bite it off. It grows close to the ground ; its perfect circle of thick, short fingers, rather like gigantic asparagus, radiating stiffly from the centre. How the cattle manage to eat it without serious consequences has always been a matter of wonder to me, for the whole plant is filled with a thick, white, milky juice, which when dry becomes like the strongest india- rubber. We often used this juice for mending china, articles of jewellery, and many things which defied coaguline, to which, indeed, we found it superior. One of our plants always reminded me of those French sweets, threaded on a stiff straw, which often form a part of the contents of a bon-bon box. The thick, succulent leaves, shaded green and red, with a frosted, sparkling surface which increases the resem- blance tc the candied sweets, and all as exactly alike in shape and size as if made in one mould, are threaded like beads at equal distances along the stem, which passes through a little round hole in the very centre of each. They can all be taken off and threaded on again just as they were before. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. 59 Close to the ground, and growing from a little round root apparently belonging to the bulbous tribe, you sometimes — though only rarely — see a tiny mass of soft, curling fibres, delicate and unsubstantial-looking as a little green cloud. Even the foliage of asparagus would look coarse and heavy if placed beside this really ethereal little plant, which yet is durable, for I have now with me a specimen which, though gathered five years ago, is still quite unchanged. The wild tobacco is a common — indeed too common — plant in the Karroo ; it has clusters of long, narrow, trumpet-shaped flowers, of a light yellow, its leaves are small, and it resembles the cultivated tobacco neither in appearance nor in usefulness. Indeed it is one of our worst enemies, being poisonous to ostriches, which of course — true to their character — lose no opportunity of eating it. We made deadly war upon it, and when- ever during our rides about the farm we came upon a clump of its blue-green bushes, we would make up a little bonfire at the foot of each, and burn it down to the ground. But it is tenacious of life, and its roots go down deep, so its career of evil was only cut short for a time. Besides which, our efibrts to keep it under were of little avail while our neighbours, " letting things slide," in true colonial fashion, allowed the plants to run wild on their own land ; from whence the seeds were always liable to be washed down to us during " a big rain," when the deep sluits which everywhere intersect the country become, in a few hours, raging torrents, dashing along at express speed. 6o HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Strangely enough, when T , some years ago, was travelling in Australia, to which country he had brought some ostriches from the Cape, he found that wild tobacco grew nowhere throughout the length and breadth of the land, excepting just in the very region ia which the birds had been established. During that trip he also found that the " salt-bush " of Australia, which is there considered the best kind of food for sheep, is almost identical with the braek-bosch of the Cape Colony, the only difference being that it grows higher. We have also seen the same bush growing in Algeria, and near Marseilles. On the lower slopes of some of our mountains grow tall euphorbias, shooting up straight and stiff as if made of metal, and branching out in the exact form of the Jewish candlestick sculptured on the arch of Titus in Rome. Some of these euphorbias attain the height of forty feet — quite important dimensions in that comparatively treeless land. They impart an air of melancholy and desolation to the landscape ; and look particularly weird and uncanny when, on a homeward ride, you pass through a grove of them at dusk. One more queer plant in conclusion of these slight and very unscientific reminiscences of our flora, which I trust may never meet the eye of any botanist. The kerzbosch, or candle-bush, a stunted, thorny plant, if lighted at one end when in the green state, will burn steadily just like a wax candle, and is used as a torch for burning off the thorns of prickly pear, etc. CHAPTER IV. OUR LITTLE HOME. Building operations — A plucking— Ugliness of Cape houses— Our rooms — Fountain in sitting-room a failure — Drowned pets — Decoration of rooms —Colonist must be Jack-of-all-trades — Cape waggons — Shoot- ing expeditions — Strange tale told by Boer. On our first arrival in the Karroo we were unable to take up our abode at once on our own farm ; the best of the three small Dutch houses on it being little better than a hut, and consisting but of two small and badly- built rooms ; with mud floors and smoke-blackened reed ceilings, as far removed from the horizontal as the roughly-plastered walls, which bulged and retreated in all unexpected directions, were from the perpendicular — the whole architecture, if so pretentious a term may be used, being entirely innocent of any approach to a straight line or correct angle. We at once commenced building operations ; in tlie meanwhile renting a little house which happened to be vacant on the next farm, about an hour's rough, but pretty ride from our own. Now came a busy time for T , and for his manager — the latter already installed, uncomfortably enough, in the old Dutch house— for besides the brick-making 62 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. and building, and the deepening of the well near the house, there was, as must always be the case on starting a new farm, much to be done, and everything required to be done at once. T spent most of his time at " Swaylands," as we named our farm ; and very enjoy- able for me were the days when I could spare a few hours from household duties to ride over with him, to watch the progress of the new rooms, or to be initiated into some of the mysteries of ostrich-farming, all delight- fully new and strange to me. The first sight of a plucking interested me espe- cially ; and it was not without a proud feeling of ownership that I sat on the ground in one corner of the kraal, or small temporary enclosure, helping to tie up in neat bundles our own first crop of soft, white, black, or grey feathers while watching the busy scene. It all comes back to me now with the clearness of a photograph — the bright, cloudless, metallic-looking South African sky above us ; and for a background the long range of rocky mountains, each stain on their rugged sides, each aloe or spekboom plant growing on them, sharply defined in that clear atmosphere as if seen through the large end of an opera-glass. In the foreground a forest of long necks, and a crowd of foolish, frightened faces, gaping beaks, and throats all puflfed out with air — the latter ludicrous grimace, accompanied sometimes by a short, hollow sound, half grunt, half cough, being the ostrich's mode of express- ing deepest disgust and dejection. There is a constant heavy stamping of powerful two-toed feet; an occa- OUR LITTLE HOME. 63 sional difference of opinion between two quarrelsome birds eager to fight, craning their snake-like necks hissing savagely, and " lifting up themselves on high,' but unable, owing to the closeness with which they are packed, to do each other any injury ; and the real or fancied approach of a dog causes a sudden panic and general stampede of the silly birds into one corner of the kraal, threatening to break down its not very substantial hedge of dry bush — one commotion scarcely having time to subside before another arises. And through it all, T , Mr. B , and our Kaffirs are calmly going in and out among the struggling throng ; all hard at work, the two former steadily and methodically operating with their shears on each bird as in its turn it is tugged along, like a victim to the sacrifice, by three men ; two holding its wings, and the third dragging at its long neck till one fears that with all its kicks, plunges, tumbles, and sudden wild leaps into the air, its flat, brainless litble head will be pulled ofl". One extra-refractory bird, when finally subdued, and helpless in the hands of the pluckers, avenges his wrongs upon the ostrich standing nearest to him in the crowd ; and, for every feather pulled from his own tail, gives a savage nip to the head of his unoffending neighbour, a mild bird, who does not retaliate, but looks puzzled, his own turn not yet having come. It is amusing to watch the rapid retreat of each poor denuded creature when set free from his tormentors. He goes out at the gate looking crestfallen indeed, but apparently m\ich relieved to find himself still alive. 64 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. How we enjoyed that day 1 and how delightful was our ride back to " Hume Cottage " in the evening, with the proceeds of the plucking tied up in two large white bags, and fastened to our saddles ; making us look as if we were taking our clothes to the wash. My bimdle, by the way, came to grief en route, and suddenly — somewhat to the discomposure of my horse — we found ourselves enveloped in a soft snow- storm of feathers, which went flying and whirling merrily away across the veldt; many of them, in spite of our prompt dismounting to rush madly hither and thither in pursuit, quite evading all our efforts to catch them. The modern houses on Cape farms are all built entirely on utilitarian principles, with no thought of grace or beauty ; indeed, the square and prosaic pro- portions of the ordinary packing-case seem to have been chosen as the model in the construction of nearly every room. Even if the inmates had any idea of comfort, or feeling for the picturesque — of both of which they are quite innocent — it would be impossible ever to make such rooms look either home-like or pretty. As it is, they are most often like very un- comfortable schoolrooms. Our first plan on coming to South Africa was the ambitious one of setting our fellow-colonists a brilliant example by striking out something entirely new in farm architecture ; and many times during our stay at Walmer would we talk over the white Algerian house, with the comfort and loveliness of which our ostrich- OUR LITTLE HOME. 65 farm, wherever it might be, was to be transformed into a little oasis in the desert. T covered many sheets of writing-paper with designs for the horse-shoe arches ; and with neatly-drawn plans for the long, cool Oriental rooms, surrounding the square open court ; in the centre of which was to be a fountain with bananas, ferns, blue lotus, and other water-loving plants. Alas ! however ; when we did take a farm, we found ourselves obliged after all to sacrifice beauty to useful- ness, just like our neighbours. The unlovely Dutch house, incapable as it was of adapting itself to Moorish arches, had to be utilized; the press of other work allowing us no time for pulling down and re-building, neither for indulging in any artistic vagaries ; and the two first rooms which — to meet immediate require- ments — were added as soon as bricks could be made for them, were, for greater haste, built straight and square, in the true packing-case style. They were the same size as the two old Dutch rooms ; flat-roofed like them, and built on to them in a straight line — the four, each with its alternate door and window, reminding us of the rows of little temporary rooms which form the dwellings of railway workmen when a new line is being made, and which are moved on as the work progresses. After this unpromising beginning, it is needless to say that our idea of building an Algerian house was given up ; and though in time we improved the out- ward appearance of our dwelling; breaking the straight- ness of its outlines by the addition of a pretty little sitting-room projecting from the front, and of a large 66 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. bedroom and store at the back; and plastering and "whitewashing the dirty old bricks and the too-clean new ones ; nothing can ever make it anything but an ugly house as far as the outside is concerned. With the interior, however, we have been more successful ; and our sitting-room, now consisting of a T-shaped arrange- ment of three small rooms thrown into one, is really — considering the roughness of the materials with which we started — a very bright and cosy little nook. It is most quaint and irregular, for one end of it is a room of the crookedly-built Dutch house; and when the strong old wall, three feet thick, dividing the latter from the new part, was knocked away, the old ceiling and floor turned out to be considerably lower than the new. We dignify the deep step thus formed by the name of " the dais." The latest-added portion of the room — built from T 's own design — is the prettiest of all ; and the bow window at the end, always filled with banana-plants, ferns, creepers, garden and wild flowers, forms quite a little conservatory. Though disappointed of our Moorish court, we conld not give up the idea of our fountain without a struggle, and attempted to establish it on a very small scale in this little room; in the cement floor of which, not far from the bow window, we made a round basin some four feet deep, which we filled with water. Then we wrote to Walmer for some roots of our favourite blue lotus ; with which, and with the arums' white cups, the surface of the water was to be studded ; and by-and-by — we thought — as soon as the OUR LITTLE HOME. 67 completion of more necessary operations should allow leisure for ornamental work, how delightful it would be, on coming in out of the dust and the heat, to hear the sweet, refreshing sound of falling water ; and to see the bright drops splashing on the border of maidenhair fern which was to surround the tiny basin. But, after all, our anticipations were never realized ; for we soon saw that it would be necessary to choose between our fountain and our pet animals — so numer- ous among the latter were cases of " Found Drowned." Our meerkats, in their irrepressible liveliness, were always tumbling in ; and, being unable to climb up the straight sides, would swim round and round calling: loudly for assistance ; but we were not always at hand to play the part of Humane Society, and the losses were many, including — saddest of all — that of a too-inquisi- tive young ostrich. Thousands of gnats, too, as noisy and nearly as venomous as mosquitoes, were brought into existence ; and, romantic as was the idea of water-plants growing in our little room, it had to be given up ; and we con- tented ourselves with seeing our blue lotus in the form of a dado, on which we stencilled and painted them ourselves in the true Egyptian conventional style, on alternate long and short stalks. We bordered the fire- place, and decorated the tops of the doors, with a few good old tiles from Damascus, Tunis, Algiers, and the Alhambra ; three beautiful hand-painted sarongs, brought by T from Java, formed each as perfect and artistic a portUre as could be wished, and hid the 68 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Ugly, ill-made doors ; and with Turkish rugs, Oriental embroideries of all kinds, Moorish and Kabyle pottery, Algerian coffee-tables and brackets, ancient Egyptian curiosities, and other trophies of travel, we produced a general effect which — especially in South Africa — was not to be despised. I have conceitedly said " we," as if I had had a great share in the work, but it was in reality T who did it all, and to whose artistic taste the prettiness of our little home is entirely due. The capacity, too, for turning his hand to anything, which makes him so perfect a colonist, was invaluable to us on that out-of- the-way farm ; for, there being, after the departure of the itinerant workmen who built our rooms, no paint- ers, glaziers, masons, carpenters, or other such useful people anywhere nearer than Graaff-Reinet — four hours by rail from Klipplaat — all the repairs and improve- ments of the house devolved on him. One day he would be putting new panes of glass in the windows — the next, bringing a refractory lock into proper work- ing order, or making and putting up bookshelves — then, perhaps, a defective portion of the roof would claim his attention, or he would enter on a long and persevering conflict with a smoky chimney. One of the latter, indeed, carelessly run up by our ignorant builder, was not cured until T had taken it all down and built it over again ; since which its behaviour has been blameless. N.B. — When a chimney wants sweeping in the Karroo, the usual mode of procedure is to send a fowl down it. OUR LITTLE HOME. 69 Our furniture, most of which was of tliat best kind of all for a hot climate, the Austrian bent wood, arrived in very good condition ; and in spite of the rough roads along which the waggon had to bring it from Klip- plaat, hardly anything was damaged. These Cape waggons, clumsy as they look, are splendidly adapted to the abrupt ups and downs of the country over which they travel. They are very long ; and are made in such a way that, instead of jolting and jumping up and down as an English waggon, under the trying circumstances of a journey in South Africa, would ceftainly consider itself justified in doing, they turn and bend about in quite a snake-like manner, and the motion, even on the roughest road, is never unpleasant. They are usually drawn by a span of sixteen or eighteen oxen, sometimes by mules ; and very noisily they go along ; night — their favourite travel- ling-time in hot weather — being made truly hideous while a caravan of some four or five of them is coming slowly on, with wheels creaking and groaning in all possible discordant notes, and the Hottentot drivers and voorloopers — boys who run in front — cracking their long hide whips, and urging on their animals with more fiendish sounds than ever issued even from Neapolitan throats. One has to get accustomed to the noise ; but, apart from this drawback, the waggons are most com- fortable for travelling. They are large and spacious, and roofed in by firmly-made tents which afford com- plete protection from sun and rain ; and for night journeys no Pullman car ever offered more luxurious 70 NOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. sleeping accommodation than does the kartel, a large, stro- jf framework of wood, as wide as a double-bed, suspended inside the tent of the waggon. Across this framework are stretched narrow, interlacing strips of hide ; mattresses and rugs are placed on it, and no more comfortable bed could be desired. The goods are all stowed underneath the kartel, in the bottom of the waggon. People often make shooting expeditions to the in- terior, travelling ia waggons and sometimes remaining away a year at a time. T has taken several journeys of this kind, and speaks of it as a mDst enjoy- able life. You take a horse or two and a couple of pointers ; you get plenty of shooting during the day ; and come back to the waggon in the evening to find a bright fire burning near, and diimer being prepared by the servants. The latter camp at night under the waggon. The average distance travelled is twenty-five miles a day. There is no need to take provisions for the cattle, as they are always able to graze on the way ; tracts of land, called public outspans, being set apart by Government at convenient distances along the road as halting-places for waggons. A Boer once told T a strange story of how — during one of the numerous wars with the natives — he, his wife, and children were travelling at night, when suddenly, without any apparent cause, the waggon came to a standstill ; the oxen, though beaten hard and pulling with all their might, being unable to move it, although the road at that place was perfectly level. OUR LITTLE HOME. 71 After some delay, the cattle were just as suddenly again able to move the waggon without difficulty ; apd the Boer and his family proceeded on their way. They found afterwards that, by this strange interruption to their journey, they had been prevented from encounter- ing an armed party of hostile natives, who just at that time were crossing their road some distance in front of them. CHAPTER V. CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. Cape Colony much abused — Healthy climate — Wonderful cures of con- sumption — Karroo a good place for sanatorium — Rarity of illness and accidents — The young colonist — An independent infant — Long droughts — liot winds — Dust storms— Dams — Advantage of possess- ing good wells — Partiality of thunderstorms — Delights of a brack roof^ Washed out of bed — After the rain— Our horses — Effects of rain indoors — Opslaag — The Cape winter — What to wear on Karroo farms. Of all portions of the globe, surely none has ever been so much grumbled at, abused, and despised, both justly and unjustly, as the poor Cape Colony. Hardly any one who has lived under its cloudless skies has a kind word to say for it ; indeed, it is quite the usual thing to speak of one's residence in it as of an enforced and miserable exile — a kind of penal servitude — though, strangely enough, most of those who go so rejoicingly home to England, like boys released from school, manage sooner or later to find their way out again ; as though impelled by a t juch of some such magic as that which is supposed to draw back to the Eternal City those who have once drunk at the Trevi fountain. One of the legion of grumblers tells you the Cape CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 73 Colony IS the woi'st-governed country in the world, which indeed — with the exception, perhaps, of Turkey and Morocco — it undoubtedly is; the grievance of another is that the country in general, and ostrich- farming in particular, is played out, that no more for- tunes are to be made, and that life on the farms offers nothing to compensate sufficiently for the numerous discomforts and privations which have to be endured ; the heavy import duties and consequent ruinous prices of all the necessaries of life, with the exception of meat, depriving the colonist of even that small consolation of knowing that, though uncomfortable, he is at least economizing. Sybarites accustomed to home comforts make constant comparisons between English and colonial houses, greatly to the disparagement of the latter; epicures complain bitterly of the wearying sameness of the food, resenting most deeply the perpetual recurrence on the table, morning, noon, and night, of the ubiquitous though delicious Angora goat ; while ladies are eloquent on the never-ending topics of the bad servants — cer- tainly the worst that can be found anywhere — the difficulties of housekeeping, the rough roads, the incon- venient distance from everywhere, the trouble and delay of getting provisions, etc., sent up to the farms, and, saddest of all, the want of society and the intoler- able dulness. In fact, the general opinion seems to be that of Mrs. Jellyby's daughter, that "Africa is a Beast ! " You hear so much grumbling, see such bored, dissatisfied faces, and are treated to so many gloomy and desponding views of colonial life, that it is quite a 74 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. refreshing contrast when you chance to meet an American who is contemptuously jocular on the subject of the ugly scenery, eccentric plants, queer beasts, and general all-pervading look of incompleteness, and who guesses " South Africa was finished oiF in a hurry late on Saturday night, with a few diamonds thrown in to compensate." Even the climate comes in for its share of abuse : its long droughts, its hot winds, its incessant sunshine — as if you could have too much of that ! — and its general dissimilarity to the climate of England — for which surely it ought to be commended, — all are added to the long list of complaints against a land which seems, like the much-abused donkey, to have no friends. And yet that climate, with all its drawbacks and discomforts, is the healthiest in the world ; and most especially is the Karroo district the place of all others for invalids suffering from chest complaints. No one need die of consumption, however advanced a stage his disease may have attained, if he can but reach the Cape Colony and proceed at once inland. He must not stay near the coast ; it would be as well — indeed better — for him to have remained in England to die among friends ; for in the moist neighbourhood of the sea the disease cannot be cured, its progress is simply retarded for a whUe. But a railway journey of only a few hours lands the patient in the very heart of the Karroo ; and once in its dry atmosphere, he may hope — ^nay expect — ^not a mere prolongation for a few months of such a life as one too often sees sadly ebbing away in Mediterranean CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 75 winter resorts, but a return to health and strength. Among our Cape acquaintances are some whom T knew when, years ago, they landed in the Colony — given up by their doctors at home, and so near the last stage of consumption that on arriving they could not walk on shore, but had to be carried from the vessel — and who are now as strong and well as any of their neighbours. Indeed, on my introduction to more than one of these stout and hearty colonists, I have found it quite impossible to realize that they, at any time, could have been consumptive invalids ! Unfortunately, too many presume on the completeness of their cure ; and, instead of resigning themselves to settling and finding permanent occupation in the colony, as all whose lungs have once been seriously affected ought to do, return to England ; and, having grown reckless with long residence in a land where "nothing gives you cold," soon fall victims to their treacherous native climate ; the first exposure to its damp chilliness generally bringing back in full force the foe from whose attacks they would always have been safe, had they not left the dry Karroo's protection. It is a pity European doctors do not know more about this wonderful climate for consumptive patients ; and also that so few inducements are held out for the latter to settle in the country. What a splendid plan it would be, and how many valuable lives might be saved, if some clever medical man — himself perhaps just enough of an invalid to prefer living out of England — were to take a large farm in the Karroo, and " run " 75 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. it as a sanatorium. This could be done without the expenditure of any very large amount o£ capital, as land can be rented from Government at the rate of a very moderate sum per annum. It would be necessary to choose a farm possessing a good fountain ; thus a constant supply of vegetables could be kept up, and herds of cattle, flocks of sheep and Angoras, and plenty of fowls, turkeys, etc., be maintained to provide the establishment with meat, milk, butter, and eggs — • rendering it to a great extent self-supporting. The young men could occupy themselves in superintending the farming operations, and thus would not only have plenty to do, but would at the same time be gaining health. A good troop of horses would of course be kept, so that patients might have as much riding and driving as they wished ; there would be some shooting, as there are partridges, several birds of the bustard tribe, and a few antelopes ; and with a house whose interior pre- sented the comforts of a refined home, with prettily- furnished rooms, and with a good supply of books, papers, and magazines, life in that bright, sunny land might be made pleasant enough. The healthiness of the country is greatly owing, not only to its dryness, but also to the fact of its being a table-land, one thou- sand feet above the sea ; thus the nights are always cool, and one is generally glad of two blankets, even in summer. Nor is consumption the only enemy who has to retreat powerless before the Karroo's health-giving atmosphere ; many other illnesses seem equally unable CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 77 to obtain a footing in that perfect climate. T , for instance, who from childhood had been subject to severe attacks of asthma, was completely cured by his residence on the ostrich farms; and a troublesome remittent fever, caught in the West Indies, from which I had suiFered, off and on, during seven years, left me entirely from the time we went to live at Swaylands. There seems, indeed, to be much of truth in the boastful assertion one so often hears, " No one is ever ill here ! " and the wonder is, not that doctors are so sparsely distributed through- out the Karroo, but that they ever think it worth while to settle there at all. People live quite con- tentedly two or more days' drive from the nearest doctor — medical help from Port Elizabeth being equally, if not more, inaccessible, owing to the fact that the train does not run every day — and from year's end to year's end they not only are never ill, but seem also quite exempt from the usual accidents which in other parts of the world are apt to befall humanity. They go out shooting, and their horses buck them off — a trifling, everyday event which is taken as a matter of course ; they gallop recklessly across the veldt, over ground so full of treacherous holes that a horse is liable at any moment to get a sudden and ugly fall — indeed, he often does, but the colonist always rises unhurt ; they drive home late at night along the roughest of roads, at a furious pace — often after im- bibing far more than is usually conducive to safety — and their Cape carts or American spiders very naturally tumble into sluits, run into wire fences, perform somer- 78 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. saults down steep banks, and go through other startling acrobatic feats, all with perfect impunity to the occu- pants. No legs, arms, or ribs, to say nothing of necks, are ever broken. And when the young colonist makes his first appear- ance on this world's staofe, his advent is not made the occasion for any undue display of fuss or anxiety. It is not thought worth while to summon the doctor from his distant abode ; some old Dutch or Hottentot woman, who has been a grandmother so often that her experience is large, is called in, and all goes well. The young colonist himself is invariably a flourishing specimen of humanity ; the childish ailments to which so many of his less robust European contemporaries succumb, cause him no trouble, and, if indeed they attack him at all, he weathers them triumphantly. He thrives in the pure fresh air, revels in the healthy out-door life, eats, of course, to an enormous and alarming extent, and grows up a young giant. He enjoys the same immunity from accident as his elders, passing safely through even more " hair - breadth 'scapes " than they ; his sturdy, independent spirit makes him equal to any emergency, and enables him, in whatever circumstances of difficulty or danger he may be placed, to take very good care of himself. On the farm next to ours a tiny boy of three, while playing with the windlass of a deep well, and hanginc on to the rope, suddenly let himself down with a run into the water. He was not much disconcerted, how- ever ; but, with wonderful presence of mind for such CLIMATE OF THE'^KARROO. 79 a baby, managed to get his feet firmly on the bucket, and finding the length of the rope just, though only just, allowed his mouth to come above the surface, remained immovable, roaring steadily and lustily till assistance came. The long droughts are certainly very trying ; indeed they could not possibly be endured by any country less wonderfully fertile than South Africa, where it is calculated that three good days' rain in the year, could we but have this regularly, would be sufficient to meet all the needs of the land. But often, for more than a year, there will be no rain worth mentioning ; the dams, or large artificial reservoirs, of which each farm usually possesses several, gradually become dry ; and the veldt daily loses more of its verdure, till at last all is one dull, ugly brown, and the whole plain lies parched and burnt up under a sky from which every atom of moisture seems to have departed — a hard, grey, metallic sky, as different as possible from the rich, deep-blue canopy which, far away to the north, spreads over lovely Algeria. The stock, with the pathetic tameness of thirst, come from all parts of the farm to congregate close round the house ; the inquiring ostriches tapping with their bills on the windows as they look in at you, and the cattle lowing in piteous appeal for water ; and you realize very vividly the force of such Scriptural expressions as, " the heaven was shut up," or, " a dry and thirsty land where no water is." Then the hot winds sweep across the country, 8o HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. making everybody tired, languid, head-achy and cross. Indeed, excessive irritability seems to be the general result of hot winds in all parts of the world ; in Egypt, for instance, there is never so much crime among the natives as while the Jchamseen is blowing ; every out- break of the Arabs in Algiers invariably occurs during an extra bad sirocco ; and in a Spanish family I knew in Havana there obtained a very sensible rule, unani- mously adopted to avoid collisions of temper, i.g., on the days of an especially venomous hot wind peculiar to Cuba an unbroken silence was maintained ; no member of the family, on any pretence whatever, speaking to another. Even our pets were sulky on a hot wind day ; and as for the ostriches, they were deplorable objects indeed as they stood gasping for breath, with pendent wings, open bills, and inflated throats, the pictures of imbecile dejection. In fact, everything human, four- footed, and feathered, in the whole Karroo, was as thoroughly unhappy as it could well be ; with the sole exception of myself. My spirits, instead of falling below zero, would always rise in proportion as the sur- rounding air became more like the breath of a furnace ; this was not owing, as may perhaps be supposed, to the possession of so rare a sweetness of temper as to render ' me happy under even the most adverse circumstances, but sim|ily to a real and intense enjoyment of that weather which everyone else hated. While T , closing every door and window as tightly as possible (which, however, is not saying much), would retire to his bath, there to spend a couple of hours in company CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 8i with books, papers, and numberless lemon-squashes, if lemons happened to be attainable ; I would carry my chair outside, and, as I darned socks or repaired the latest) erap-doors torn ia our garments by the thorns, would revel in Tny bath of hot, dry air. The dust which the hot wind brings with it is, how- ever, a nuisance. There is more than enough dust at the best of times ; and the difficulties — already consider- able — of keeping a Karroo house neat and clean, are not lessened by the fact that, ten minutes after a careful progress round the room with that most perfect of dusters, a bunch of ostrich-feathers, you can distinctly sign your name with your finger on the little black writing-table, or make a drawing on the piano. But in a good hot wind you have far more than this average, everyday amount of " matter in the wrong place," and you eat and breathe dust. Sometimes the wind carries the dust high up into the air. In straight, solid-looking columns rising from the ground just as a water-spout rises from the sea. An artist wishing to depict the pillar of the cloud going before the Israelites might well take the form of one of them as a model. Occasionally you see two or three of these columns wandering about the veldt in different directions ; and woe betide the imperfectly-built house, or tall wind-mill pump, which has the ill-luck to stand in the path of one of these erratic visitants ! We, alas ! can speak from experience, our own " Stover " mill having been chosen as a victim and whirled aloft to its destruction ! T , while at Kimberley, in the early 82 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. days of the diamond-fields, has often seen these dusty whirlwinds going about the camp, passing between the long rows of tents as if hesitating for a time which to attack ; then suddenly " going for " one of them, causing instantaneous collapse and confusion. Every Karroo house has a dam near it, and on a large farm there are generally three or four more of these reservoirs in different parts of the land. The selection of a suitable site for a dam requires some experience. An embankment is thrown up across a valley, where from the rising ground on either side the water is collected. The ground must be " brack," a peculiar kind of soil which, though loose and friable, is not porous. This brack is often used to cover the flat roofs of the houses ; but unless it is well sifted and laid on thickly, dependence cannot always be placed on it, as we have several times found to our cost. Rows of willows or mimosas are generally planted along the banks of the dams ; and though the moisture which is sucked up by their thirsty roots can ill be afforded, yet, in that most treeless of lands, their bright, fresh green is of immense value ; and the poor ugly houses, standing so forlornly on the bare veldt, with but the narrowest and scantiest of gardens — if any — between them and the surrounding desert, seem redeemed from utter dreariness and desolation, and some slight look of home and of refinement is imparted by the dam's semicircle of trees. A good-sized dam is sometimes half a mile broad, and, when just filled after a good thunder- shower, is quite an imposing sheet of water. Occasion- CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 83 ally, in very heavy thunder-storms, the glorious supplies pour in too lavishly ; the embankment, unable to resist the pressure, gives way ; and the disappointed farmer, who has ridden up in the hope of feasting his eyes on watery wealth, beholds his treasure flowing uselessly and aimlessly away across the veldt. Then, too, even the noblest of dams miut dry up in a long drought ; and that landowner is wise who does not depend solely on this form of water-supply, but who takes the precaution of sinking one or more good wells. This is expensive work — especially when, as in our case, the hard rock has to be blown away by dyna- mite ; a party of navvies, encamped on the farm for weeks, progressing but slowly and laboriously at the rate of about one foot per day, for which the payment is £5 a foot ; but the advantage is seen during the pro- tracted droughts. Then, on farms which only possess dams, the ostriches and other stock are seen lying dead in all directions, a most melancholy sight. Where there is a well, however, the animals can always be kept alive. The water may go down rather low, and the supply doled out to the thirsty creatures may not be very plentiful ; but with careful management no stock need be lost during the longest of droughts. But, even with our good well, we found it necessary to be very economical ; and the few small eucalypti and other trees which, with great difficulty, we kept alive near the house, have often for weeks together been obliged to content themselves with the soapy water from the baths ; while our poor little patch of kitchen-garden 84 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. has more than once had to be sacrificed and allowed to dry up — the water necessary for its irrigation being more than we could venture to spare. In some parts of the country the inhabitants are occasionally in terrible straits for want of water ; and during one severe drought some passing strangers, who rested a few hours at our house, told us a horrid story of how, at one of the " cantines " (combinations of inn and general store) along their road, they had asked for water to wash their hands, and a scanty supply was brought, with the request that no soap might be used, that same water being ultimately destined to make the tea ! It sounds incredible, but I fear it is more likely to be truth than fiction, for the Dutch at the Cape are dirty enough for anything. The partiality of the thunder-storms is surprising ; sometimes one farm will have all its dams filled, while another near it does not get a drop of rain. Often, during a whole season, the thunder-clouds will follow the same course ; one unlucky place being repeatedly left out. Swaylands was once for months passed over in this maimer ; our neighbours on both sides having an abundance of water, while we, like the unhappy little pig of nursery fame, " had none," and found it difiicult to restrain envy, hatred, and malice. Then, too, the clouds have such a deceitful and tantalizing way of collecting in magnificent masses, and coming rolling grandly up as if they really meant business at last — only to disperse quietly in a few hours, disappointing all the hopes they have raised. r.r.lMATE OF THE KARROO. 85 Again and again you are deluded into believing the long, weary drought is indeed nearing its end ; you feel so sure there is a tremendous rain just at hand, that you prepare for action, and, doubting the trust- worthiness of those portions of the roof covered with brack, are careful to remove from beneath them every- thing liable to be spoilt by wet then, having set your house in order, you wait eagerly to hear the first pattering of the longed-for drops. They do not come, however ; it all ends in nothing, and soon every cloud is gone, and the sun blazes out once more in pitiless splendour. Then at last, after " Wolf ! " has been cried so often that you are off your guard, and — obstinately refusing to be taken in by the promising bank of clouds you noticed in the evening — have gone off to bed, expecting your waking eyes to rest only on the usual hard, hot, grey-blue sky — suddenly, in the middle of the night, you are aroused by a deafening noise, and your iirst confused, half-dreaming thought is that somehow or other you have got underneath the Falls of Niagara — , house and all. Then a blue flash wakes you quite up, a terrific roar of thunder shakes the house, and you realize that what for months you have been so longing for has come at last ! But there are penalties to be paid for it ; and an ominous sound of trickling strikes your ear. Your bedroom unfortunately has a brack roof ; and through the defective places in the latter, which every moment become larger and more numerous, streams of water are pouring in, till at last the room 86 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. seems to be one large shower-bath. You think with horror of the books, writing-case, photographs, lace- trimmed hat, work-basket, boots, etc., all left in various exposed positions about the room, and — most frightful thought of all — of the coats and dresses hanging on the row of pegs in that corner where, to judge by the sound, the most substantial of all the cataracts seems to be descending ; and you feel that you must learn at once the extent of your misfortune, and rescue what you can. You try to light a candle ; but a well-directed jet of water has been steadily playing straight down into the candlestick, and a vicious sputter is the only response to your efforts. You are still struggling with the candle; trying to wipe it dry, using persuasive language to it, and as far from getting a light as ever ; when your breath is suddenly taken away by a stream of ice-cold water pouring over your back, and you find that you have shipped as fine a " sea '' as ever dashed through an incautiously-opened port. The flat roof, which has been collecting water till it has become like a tank, has given way under the pressure, and a wide crack has opened just above your head. Of course you are wet through, so is the bed on which you are sitting ; and you make a prompt descent from the latter, only to find the fioor one vast, shallow bath, in which your slippers are floating. And now, as you grope about, hurriedly collecting the more perishable articles, and flinging them into the safety of the next room — which has a corrugated iron roof — you hear a dull roar ; far off at first, but advancing CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 87 nearer and nearer ; till at last a grand volume of sound thunders past, and a broad, tossing river, impetuous as any mountain torrent, is suddenly at your very gates. It is the sluit coming down ; filling, and perhaps widely overflowing, its deep channel, which, straight and steep as a railway cutting, has stood dry so long. In aU directions these sluits are now careering over the country ; and though occasionally their wild rush does some mischief, such as washing away ostriches' nests, drowning stock, or carrying into a dam such an accu- mulation of soil as to fill it up and render it useless- still, on the whole, the sluit is a most beneficent friend to the farmer. And now, at the first welcome sound of that friend's approach, you hear overhead the loud congratulations of the gentlemen, who, attired in ulsters, are hard at work on the roof, whither they have hastily scrambled to lessen as far as possible the deluge within. " This is worth £200 to us ! " you hear in triumphant tones, " We're all right now for six months ! " Then — less joyfully — comes a query as to how the great dam in the upper camp, which on a former sad occasion has " gone," will stand this time ; but the general opinion is that, with the considerable strengthening it has since received, it w.ill weather the storm ; and in the meanwhile souls must be possessed in patience till the morning. And still the rain keeps on, steadily and noisily; and with all the discom- fort, and with all the mischief it has wrought indoors, how thankful one is for it ! And how one's heart is gladdened by that " sound of abundance of rain," and 88 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. " voice of many waters ! " It means everything to the farmer ; the long drought over at last, the dams full, the parched country revived, the poor thin cattle no longer in danger of starvation ; healthier ostriches, a better quality of feathers, a near prospect of nests, and in fact the removal of a load of cares and anxieties. How early we are all astir on the morning after a biff rain ! and with what eacrer excitement we look out, in the first gleam of daylight, for that most wel- come sight, the newly-filled dam ! A wonderful trans- formation has indeed been worked in the appearance of tilings since last night. That unsightly dry bed of light-coloured soil, baked by the hot sun to the hard- ness of pottery, and broken up bj'- a thousand inter- secting deep cracks and fissures, which has so long been the ugliest feature among all our unpicturesque surroundings, offends the eye no more ; and in its place there now lies in the early morning light a beautiful broad sheet of water, into which the yellow sluit, a miniature Niagara Rapids, is still lavishly pouring its wealth — not for many hours indeed will the impetuous course of this and numerous other sluits, large and small, begin gradually to subside. Every- where the water is standing in immense pools and ponds ; how to feed one unlucky pair of breeding-birds — my special charges — in a low-lying camp on the other side of the sluit is a problem which for the present I do not attempt to solve ; indeed, to walk a yard from the door, even in the thickest of boots and shabbiest of garments, requires some courage, for it is CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 8g anything but an easy matter to keep your feet, and if you fell, you would go into a perfect bath of mud. In some places lie accumulations of hailstones (accounting for the icy coldness of that impromptu shower-bath), and, though partially melted, some of them are still of the size of hazel nuts. The rain is over ; and the friendly clouds to which we owe so much are already far off, and lie in white, round, solid-looking masses along the horizon. The sky, as if softened by its tempest of passion, seems of a bluer and more tender tint than it has been for a long time, and all nature appears full of joy and thanksgiving. From all sides you hear the loud chorus of myriads of rejoicing frogs, all croaking congratulations to each other, and all talking at once ; they seem to have spiung suddenly into existence since last night, and their noise, discord- ant as it is, is not unwelcome after the long silence of the drought. Toto, the instant he catches sight of the water, rushes out of the house, gallops wildly down to the dam, and plunges in, to swim round and round and round, barking with delight. He seems as if he could not have enough of the water ; for when, after a long time, he has come out, and is on his way back to us, he suddenly changes his mind, and dashes back for another bathe. Then he seems to lose his head alto- gether, and vents his wild spirits in a sort of frenzied war-dance along the banks of the dam ; seriously up- setting the composure, as well as the dignity, of the crow Bobby, a bird of neat and cleanly habits, who, 00 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. loiig debarred from any more satisfactory bath than a washing-basin, has walked down, with the air of an explorer, to this new lake he has just discovered; and is croaking softly and contentedly to himself as ho splashes the bright drops again and again over his dusty black plumage. He does not like Toto ; indeed, there is a mutual jealousy between these two favoured pets of ours, and they are always rather glad of an excuse for a good row, such as now ensues. When the commotion has subsided, and Toto is at a safe distance from the dam, a troop of ostriches come down to drink. They are no doubt delighted to find such an abundant supply of water, after the somewhat scanty allowance which has been portioned out to them of late ; and they stand greedily scooping up large quantities with their broad bills ; then assuming comical attitudes as they stretch out their distended necks to allow the fluid to run down. In the distance, about a dozen other ostriches are spreading their white wings and waltzing along magnificently — a pretty way of expressing their satisfaction at this new and delightful change in their circumstances. But it is sometimes an expensive amusement ; and we feel relieved when all have settled down, with unbroken legs, into a more sober mood. The fowls alone do not participate in the general rejoicing ; their house was even less water-tight than our room, and they all seem to have caught cold, and look draggled and miserable. Two poor sitting-hens have been washed out of their nests in the kraal hedge ; CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. gr their eggs are under water, and they wander about clucking despondently. By-and-by they will all be happier, when the waters have subsided a little, and they can pick succulent insects out of the softened ground ; but in the meanwhile they show plainly that they do not see the good of living in a half-drowned world. And here come two of the horses, with " Septem- ber,"* one of our Kaffir herds, who has been out on the veldt to find and catch them. Like most of the other colonists, we have no stables, and when our animals have done their day's work, we let them go, unless an early start has to be made in the morning ; then, as they sometimes go long distances, and are not to be caught in a hurry, those that will be wanted are kept in the kraal over-night. During severe droughts the horses are fed at the house ; but when there is plenty of vegetation on the veldt, they pick up a living for themselves. They do not get very fat, nor are they handsome to look at ; and if an English coachman could see their bony frames and rough, ungroomed coats, he would no doubt be filled with the profoundest con- tempt. Yet, with all their uncouth appearance, they are far more serviceable than his fat, sleek, overfed animals. They can travel much longer distances ; they do not have such frequent colds and other ailments — lameness especially is quite unknown among them — and their services are always at the command of their master, of any of his friends and acquaintances, or * Many of the negroes on Cape farms are named after the months. 7 93 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. even of perfect strangers who may happen to require a mount or a lift. For the colonist is as hospitable with his horses and his vehicles as he is with everything else that he possesses ; and the arrival of an invited guest in a hired conveyance, though no unfrequent event ac English country homes, is a thing quite unheard-of on Cape farms. Although in many parts of South Africa horses do not require shoeing at all, they need it in the Karroo, where the ground is particularly stony. When a horse's shoes are worn out, he is worked for some time unshod, until the hoof, which had grown considerably, has worn down, and the animal begins to be a little tender-footed ; then fresh shoes are pub on. This plan renders it un- necessary for the blacksmith to use his knife, and ensures that the hoof is worn evenly ; thus avoiding the lameness which in England is so often caused by the hoof not being pared straight. And in the meanwhile the two horses have been saddled, and off go T and Mr. B on a tour of inspection round the farm ; first of all making a bee- line for the opposite range of hills, where lies that particular dam in the fate of which we are so deeply interested. I cannot ride with them, much as I should have liked it ; for the scenes of devastation indoors claim my attention, and with my dark-skinned hand- maiden and another Kaffir woman, wife of one of the herds, whom I have pressed into the service, I go to work ; boldly attacking first the most herculean task of all, i.e., the cleaning of the bedroom out of which we CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 93 were washed last night. Truly an Augean stable is this first room ; and the sight of its horrors by daylight makes me wonder how by any possibility it can ever again be fit for human habitation. The water with which the bed has been deluged was no clear crystal stream — far from it — and pillows, sheets, and counter- pane are of a rich brown hue; so are the toilet table and the once pretty window-curtains of blue-and-white Madras muslin, which now look melancholy indeed as they hang down, straight and limp, from thejj cornice. In fact, hardly anything in the room can boast of having remained perfectly dry and clean ; and the floor is a pool of dirty water several inches deep. It all looks hopeless ; but we refuse to be daunted, and set to work with a will ; things dry quickly in such a sun as is now shining brightly outside ; the mud is " clean " mud, too, and does not stain or spoil so irretrievably as that of most other places. A Falstaffian bundle is made up for the wash, which will keep a KafiBr hard at work for two good days turning the washing-machine ; a vigorous scrubbing and " swabbing of decks '' goes on indoors ; and by the time the gentlemen return to lunch, in the best of spirits, and reporting the dam safe and splendidly full, things have already assumed a brighter aspect. T spends the afternoon in repairing the roof, and I walk about the house with a long broom, poking and tapping the ceilings to indicate to him the defective spots ; he does the work far better than it was originally done by the builder of the house, and never afterwards do we have so bad a deluge. 94 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. It was, however, very nearly equalled in magnitude by a previous one, which, while we were living at Hume Cottage, gave me the first experience of a big rain — and of a brack roof. T being away for a few days, I was alone in the house with my one black servant, who of course slept placidly through all the tumult of the elements. I, on the contrary — the bedroom being water-tight — was lying awake, listening and rejoicing as I thought of all the good this splendid rain would do us. Little did I suspect what it was doing in the sitting-room ; and I cheerfully and briskly opened the door of the latter next morning, all unprepared for the sight which met my eyes. Poor little room ! only a few days before we had taken such pride and pleasure in beautifying it — and now ! It looked like nothing but the saloon of a steamer which had gone down and been fished up again. The treacherous roof had let in floods of dirty brown water in all directions ; the Turkish rugs were half buried in mud ; the new bent-wood chairs looked like neglected old garden seats which for years had braved all weathers ; and the table-cloth, on the artistic colours of which we had prided ourselves, gave a very good idea of the probable state of Sir Wf,lter Raleigh's cloak after serving as an impromptu carpet for his queen. But the brunt of the storm had fallen on two sets of hanging bookshelves, well filled with nicely-bound volumes, and gracefully draped with some of our pet pieces of Turkish needlework. The books all looked as if they had been boiled ; and the colour which had come out of their swollen and pulpy bindings CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. 95 had run down the saturated embroideries in long streaks, showing where a red book had stood, where a blue or green one, etc. Fortunately, a good cleaning and washing restored most things to a tidy, if not perfectly fresh appearance ; but those poor books never recovered. In a few days — incredibly few — the efi'ects of a good rain are seen in the appearance of the veldt, which rapidly loses its dry, bnrnt-up look. But, even before the perennial bush has had time to recover its succu- lence and verdure, all the spaces between its isolated tufts are covered with the softest and most delicate- looking vegetation, which, as if by magic, has sprung suddenly into existence. All these plants, which are of many different kinds, and some of which possess very minute and pretty flowers, are indiscriminately called by the Dutch opslaag (" that which comes up ") ; and if you happen at the time of their appearance to have a troop of infant ostriches, there is no better food for the little creatures than this tender, bright-green foliage. They are but short-lived little plants ; the hot sun soon drying them up. If the Cape Colony only possessed mountains high entugh to give an abundant rainfall, what a gloriously fertile country it would be ! Without droughts, what a splendid possession our farm would be to us ! Often, when the coveted clouds have passed so close that it seemed as if they must be just about to break over the farm, T , remembering how the firing of the great guns at Woolwich sometimes brings down the rain, has thought it might be a good plan to send up a 95 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. fire-balloon with a charge of dynamite, and, catching the rain on our land, prevent it from going off so disappointingly elsewhere. The short Cape winter, corresponding in duration to the English summer, is never severe. Cold winds blow from the direction of Graaff-Reinet on the not very frequent occasions when the higher mountains round that little town are for a short time topped with snow. In June and July the evenings and early mornings are decidedly cold. There is sometimes a little frost at night, and fi.res are pleasant ; but in the middle of the day there is always warm, bright sun- shine. Altogether, our winter under the Southern Cross has nothing cheerless or depressing about it ; and those to whom the heat of the long summer has been a little trying, find the change most bracing and invigorating. For farm life in the Karroo much the same kind of clothing is required as in England ; everything must of course be of good strong material, and black or very dark colours ai-e, in that dustiest of lands, to be avoided. Ladies' washing dresses should not be too delicate, nor sliould they be such as to require elaborate getting up ; for of all the numerous things which on our isolated farms have to be done — either well, badly, or indifierently — at home, the laundry department is the very furthest from being our forte. The clothes become so discoloured from being continually washed in the yellow water of tbe dams ; and the Kaffir women — if they profess to starch and iron at all — do it so CLIMATE OF THE KARROO. gj badly, that the things are often unwearable. As for myself, I was fortunate in possessing for everyday wear strong cotton dresses of Egyptian manufacture; which required neither starching nor ironing, and, after being washed, and dried in the sun, were ready to be put on at once, ior driving, and especially for the long journeys of several days, which sometimes have to be taken in Cape carts or spiders, a light dust-cloak is indispensable. Boots and shoes, more than anything else, need to be strong, and for gentlemen who live the active outdoor life of the farms, there is nothing so serviceable as the country-made veldtschoon. CHAPTER VI. OSTRICHES. An unwilling ride— First sight of an ostrich farm — Ridiculous mistakes about ostriches— Decreased value of birds and feathers — Chicks- Plumage of ostriches — A frightened ostrich — The plucking-box — Sorting feathers — Voice of the ostrich — Savage birds — " Not afraid of a dicky-bird ! " — Quelling an ostrich — Birds killed by men in self-defence — Nests — An undutiful hen — Darby and Joan — A dis- consolate widower^A hen-pecked husband — Too much zeal — Jackie — Cooling the eggs — The white necked crow — Poisoning jackals — Ostrich eggs in the kitchen— A quaint old writer on ostriches — A suppliant bird — Nest destroyed by enraged ostrich — An old bachelor. A FEW years before my marriage, having, as usual, fled the terrors of the English winter, I was with a friend in Egypt. And one morning this friend and I stood in the court of the Hotel du Nil in Cairo ; preparing to mount donkeys and start on a photographing expedition to Heliopolis (the " On " of the Scriptures), and Matariyeh, one of the supposed resting-places of the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt. The fussy, bustling little German manager of the hotel, with his usual paternal care for his guests, was commending us, in a long and voluble Arabic speech, to the special care and attention of the donkey-boys ; with numerous minute instruc- OSTRICHES. 99 tions, all unintelligible to us, as to our route, etc. Then, just as we had mounted, he turned to us and said, " I have told them to show you something more on the way back, something very interesting." " What is it ? " we were about to ask ; but before we could get the words out, the ubiquitous little man had bustled off to other business ; and we ourselves were flying at a headlong pace down the narrow Arab street, closely pursued by our impetuous donkey-boys ; who, anxious to make an imposing start, urged on our animals, not only with savage yells and blows, but also with frequent and cruel digs from the sharp points of our camera's tripod stand. Even after we had left the town far behind us, and our tyrants, for lack of an admiring crowd before whom to exhibit us, allowed us to settle down into a peaceful trot, it was quite useless to look to them for . any information concerning this promised interesting sight ; for our few words of Algerian Arabic did not avail in Egypt ; and as for the European vocabulary of the donkey -boys, it was, as usual, strictly limited to an accurate knowledge of all the bad words in English, French and German. N.B. — A donkey-boy is never promoted to the dignity of being called a donhej-man, but, however old and grey he may have grown in the service, always retains the juvenile appellation. On arriving at Heliopolis, our ungratified curiosity was soon forgotten in the interest of seeing that vener- able obelisk which once, in all probability, looked down on the wedding procession of Joseph and the daughter 100 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. of " Potipherah, priest of On ; " and the sun gave U3 some good pictures of that sole remaining relic of the city where he himself was formerly worshipped. We spent a long morning at Heliopolis and Matariyeh ; and it was not until we had proceeded some distance along the dusty road leading back to Cairo, that we suddenly recollected there was yet one more sight on our programme. The sun was blazing down fiercely on us ; we were very tired ; longing visions of the Hotel du Nil luncheon, the hour for which bad already come, filled our minds ; and most devoutly did we hope the donkey-boys might forget they had something more to show us, and — possibly being hungry themselves — take us straight home. But no ! suddenly our reluc- tant donkeys were abruptly turned from the homeward course on which they were trotting so merrily ; and by main force pushed into a particularly uninviting path branching ofi" at right angles from the road. We made one desperate efibrt to turn them back ; but our tor- mentors flew to their heads, and, dragging, pushing, almost lifting them along, applied the tripod's spikes with fresh energy. In vain did we expostulate ; ex- plaining piteously, with all the powers of pantomime at our command, that we were tired and hungry, and wanted to go back to the hotel ; that we would come and see this interesting sight, whatever it was, to- morrow, hoohra — that favourite word of the procrasti- nating Orientals, which, like the manaitia of the Spaniards, soon becomes hatefully familiar from con- stant hearing, and which is second only to the terrible OSTRICHES. loi baksheesh ! The relentless donkey-boys, beyond chuck- ling over our disappointment, took no notice whatever of our appeals ; and on we had to go at a rapid gallop, stirring up dense clouds of the blinding, choking, evil- smelling Egyptian dust; and realizing, as did Mark Twain' when ascending the Pyramid, how powerless one is in the hands of Arabs, who surely, with such iron wills, ought to be good mesmerists. Resigning our- selves at last to our fate with the patience of despair, we tried, though with but languid interest, to find out what we were going to see ; but for a long time could get nothing intelligible from the donkey-boys, who only enjoyed our mystification. At last one of them, struck by a bright idea, pointed to J 's hat, in which was an ostrich-feather ; and we guessed at once that the Khedive's ostrich farm, which we knew was some- where in the neighbourhood of Cairo, was the object of our unwilling ride. Here was another disappointment ! Not even a ruined mosque, picturesque Arab house, or other possible subject for the camera, to reward us for our fatigue and discomfort ; nothing but dry, barren- looking land, ugly modern European buildings, and ungainly birds ! We walked hurriedly, and with great indifference, past the rows of camps, each with its pair of breeding-birds ; felt little regret on being denied entrance to the incubator-rooms, which, happening to contain young chicks, were closed to the public ; and rejoiced exceedingly when, our task done, and our tyrants appeased by our complete subjugation, we were at last on our way back to Cairo. 102 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Thus, in weariness and indifference, I viewed an ostrich farm for the first time. Could I but have had one vision of the happy home, situated among just such surroundings, which awaited me in the future, with what different eyes would I have looked on all the minutest details of a daily life destined one day to be mine ! How eagerly would I have bribed the custodian of the incubators fbr just one peep at the little rough-coated baby ostriches, if I had known what numbers of these comical wee things were in future to be my carefully- tended nurslings ! And when T -, anxious to com- pare notes, sometimes asks me how this or that was managed on the Khedive's farm, and I am unable to give accurate information, I still regret that lost oppor- tunity ; and blush at the remembrance of the base longing for luncheon, to which, I fear, the want of observation was chiefly due. It is rather surprising to find how little is known in England about ostrich-farming. Any information on the subject seems quite new to the hearers ; and the strangest questions are sometimes asked — as, for in- stance, whether ostriches fly; whether they bite; whether we ever ride or drive them, etc. It is always taken for granted that a vicious bird administers his kick backwards, like a horse; and there seems still to be a very general belief in those old popular errors of which the natural history of these creatures possesses more than the average share. If you look at the picture of an ostrich, you will be sure to find, in nine cases out of ten, that the drawing is ludicrously incorrect ; the bird OSTRICHES. 103 being almost invariably represented with three toes instead of two ; and with a tail consisting of a large and magnificent bunch of wm^r-feathers, the finest and longest of "prime whites." Farmers would only bo too thankful if their birds hid such tails, instead of the short, stiff, scrubby tuft of inferior feathers which in reality forms the caudal appendage. Each of my friends and relatives, wherf first told, at the time of our engagement, that T was "an ostrich-farmer," received the intelligence with an amused smile ; and the clergyman at whose church we were married seemed quite taken aback on obtaining so novel and unexpected an answer to his question, during the vestry formalities, as to T 's vocation in life. He hesitated, pen in hand, for some time ; made T ■ repeat and explain the puzzling word ; and at last only with evident reluctance inscribed it in the church books. In the early days of ostrich-farming splendid for- tunes were made. Then, feathers were worth £100 per lb., the plumes of one bird at a single plucking realizing on an average £25. For a good pair of breed- ing-birds £400, or even £500, was no uncommon price ; and little chicks, only just out of the egg, were worth £L0 each. Indeed, the unhatched eggs have sometimes been valued at the same amount. But, since the supply has become so much greater than the demand, things are sadly changed for the farmers ; our best pair of ostriches would not now sell for more than £12, and experience has taught us to look for no higher sum than thirty shillings for the feathers of the handsomest 104 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. bird at one plucking. At the same time, if a lady- wishes to buy a good feather in London or Paris, she has to pay nearly the same price as in former times.* There are not many young animals prettier than a little ostrich-chick during the first few weeks of life. It has such a sweet, innocent baby -face, such large eyes, and such a plump, round little body. All its move- ments are comical, and there is an air of conceit and independence about the tiny creature which is most amusing. Instead of feathers, it has a little rouofh coat which seems all made up of narrow strips of material, of as many different shades of brown and grey as there are in a tailor's pattern-book, mixed with shreds of black ; while the head and neck are apparently covered with the softest plush, striped and coloured just like a tiger's skin on a small scale. On the whole, the little fellow, on his first appearance in the world, is not un- like a hedgehog on two legs, with a long neck. One would like these delightful little creatures to remain babies much longer than they do ; but they grow quickly, and with their growth they soon lose all their prettiness and roundness; their bodies become angular and ill-proportioned, a crop of coarse, wiry feathers sprouts from the parti-coloured strips which formed their baby-clothes, and they enter on an ugly " hobbledehoy " stage, in which they remain for two or three years. * Although, since these pages were written, ostriches have some- what increased in value it cannot, of course, be expected that they will ever again command the prices of former days. Ostrich-chicks. OSTRICHES. 105 A young ostrich's rough, bristly, untidy-looking " chicken-feathers " are plucked for the first time when he is nine months old ; they are stiff and narrow, with very pointed tips, and their ugly appearance gives no promise of future beauty. They do not look as if they could be used for anything but making feather brooms. In the second year they are rather more like what ostrich-feathers ought to be, though still very narrow and pointed ; and not until their wearer is plucked for the third time have they attained their full width and softness. During the first two years the sexes cannot be dis- tinguished, the plumage of all being of a dingy drab mixed with black ; the latter hue then begins to pre- dominate more and more in the male bird with each successive moulting, until at length no drab feathers are left. At five years the bird has attained maturity ; the plumage of the male is then of a beautiful glossy black, and that of the female of a soft grey, both having white wings and tails. In each wing there are twenty-four long white feathers, which, when the wing is spread out, hang gracefully round the bird like a lovely deep fringe — just as I have sometimes in Brazilian forests, seen fringes of large and delicate fern-fronds hanging, high overhead, from the branches of some giant tree. The ostrich's body is literally " a bag of bones ; " and the enormously-developed thighs, which are the only fleshy part of the bird, are quite bare, their coarse skin being of a peculiarly ugly blue-grey colour. The little io6 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. flat head, much too small for the huge body, is also bald, with the exception of a few stiff bristles and scanty- tufts of down ; such as also redeem the neck from absolute bareness. During the breeding season the bUl of the male bird, and the large scales on the fore part of his legs, assume a beautiful deep rose-colour, looking just as if they were made of the finest pink coral ; in some cases the skin of the head and neck also becomes red at that time. The North African or Barbary ostriches, several of which are to be seen at the Jardin d'Essai, in Algiers, have bright red thighs, head, and neck, and are alto- gether far handsomer than the Cape birds ; their feathers also, being larger, softer, and possessing longer filaments, command much higher prices than those of their southern brethren. Altogether, ostriches are queer-looking creatures ; they are so awkward, so out of proportion, and every- thing about them, with the exception of their plumage and their big, soft, dark eyes, is so quaintly ugly as to suggest the idea that they have only by some mistake survived the Deluge, and that they would be more in their right place embedded in the fossiliferous strata of the earth than runnino; about on its surface. And how they do run ! Only startle an ostrich ; and very little is sufiicient to do this, his nerves being of the feeblest, and " his heart in his mouth " at even the smallest or most imaginary danger. What a jump he gives, and what a swerve to one side ! Surely it must have dislocated some of his joints. But no ; off he goes, OSTRICHES. 107 flinging out his clumsy legs, and twisting himself about as he runs, till you almost expect to see him come to pieces, or, at any rate, fling off a leg, as a lobster casts a claw, or a frightened lizard parts from its tail. An ostrich's joints seem to be all loose, like those of a lay- figure when not properly tightened up. He rapidly dis- appears from view ; and the last you see of him he is, as Mark Twain has it, " still running " — apparently with no intention of stopping till he has reached the very centre of Africa. But his mad scamper will most probably end a few miles ofl", with a tumble into a wire fence, and a broken leg. Sometimes, however, ostriches, when they take fright, run so long and get so far away that their owner never recovers them. One we heard of, to whose tail a mischievous boy had tied a newspaper, went off at railway speed, and no tidings of it were ever received. Once, when T was collecting his birds for plucking, one of them was unaccountably seized with a sudden panic, and bolted; and though T mounted at once and rode after it, he neither saw nor heard of it again. On a large farm, when plucking is contemplated, it is anything but an easy matter to collect the birds — the gatliering together of ours was generally a work of three days. Men have to be sent out in all directions to drive the birds up, by twos and threes, from the far-off spots to which they have wandered ; little troops are gradually brought together, and col- lected, first in a large enclosure, then in a small one, io8 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. tlie plucking-kraal, in which they are crowded together 80 closely, that the most savage bird has no room to make himself disagreeable. Besides the gate through which the ostriches are driven into the kraal, there is an outlet at the opposite end, through the " plucking-box." Tliis latter is a most useful invention, saving much time and trouble. It is a very solid wooden box, in which, though there is just room for an ostrich to stand, he cannot possibly turn round ; nor can he kick, the sides of the box being too high. At each end there is a stout door; one opening inside, the other outside the kraal. Each bird in succession is dragged up to the first door, and, after more or less of a scuffle, is pushed in and the door slammed behind him. Then the two operators, standing one on each side of the box, have him com- pletely in their power ; and with a few rapid snips of their shears his splendid wings are soon denuded of their long white plumes. These, to prevent their tips from being spoilt, are always cut before the quills are ripe. The stumps of the latter are allowed to remain some two or three months longer, until tliey are so ripe that they can be pulled out — generally by the teeth of the Kaffirs — without hurting the bird. It is neces- sary to pull them ; the feathers, which by their weight would have caused the stumps to fall out naturally at the right time, being gone. Some farmers, anxious to hurry on the next crop of featheis, are cruel enough to draw the stumps before they are ripe ; but nature, as usual, resents the interference with her laws, and OSTRICHES. log the feathers of birds which have been thus treated soon deteriorate. It is best to pluck only once a year. The tails, and the glossy black feathers on the bodies of the birds, having small quills, are not cut, but pulled out ; this, everyone says, does not hurt the birds, but there is an unpleasant tearing sound about the opera- tion, and I think it must make their eyes water. After a plucking would come several very busy days of sorting and tying up the feathers in readiness for the market ; for T- •, whenever he could spare the time, preferred doing this work himself to employing the professional sorters in Port Elizabeth, who charge exorbitantly. During these few days everything had to give way to feathers, large piled-up masses of which crowded the rooms, till we seemed to be over head and ears in feathers. Feathers covered the floor and in- vaded every article of furniture, especially monopolizing the dining-table ; and when, at all sorts of irregular hours, we grudgingly allowed ourselves time for rough, impromptu meals of cold or tinned meat, we picnicked among feathers. It was useless to attempt keeping the rooms either tidy or clean while sorting was going on ; and we resigned ourselves to living for those two or three days in a state at which owners of neat English homes would shudder — indeed, those only who have seen the process of sorting can form any idea of the untidiness, the dust, the fluffs, and the sneezing. But they were pleasant days ; and many an interesting book will always be associated in our minds with the sorting of ostrich-feathers ; for, while T arranged prime 110 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. whites, blacks, tails, feminas, chicken-feathers, etc., according to length, colour, and quality, I enlivened the monotony of his work by reading aloud. Sometimes the white feathers would be dirty — for there is nothing an ostrich likes better than sitting down to cool himself in the muddiest dam he can find — then it was necessary to wash them, dip them into strong raw starch, and shake them in the hot sun, beat- ing two bundles of them together till quite dry. The starch makes them look very pretty and fluffy; and young ladies in England who economically wash their own feathers would find it a great improvement. Ostrich-feathers are quite tabooed by ladles in South Africa ; they are too common, every Kaffir or Hottentot wearing one in his dirty, battered hat. If an ostrich-feather is held upright, its beautiful form — graceful as the frond-like branch of the cocoa- nut palm, which it somewhat resembles — is at once seen to be perfectly even and equal on both sides, its stem dividing it exactly in the centre ; whereas the stems of other feathers are all more or less on one side. The ancient Egyptians, observant of this — as of everything in nature — chose the ostrich-feather as the sacred em- blem of truth and justice, setting it upon the head of Thmei, goddess of truth. After a good rain, ostriches soon begin to make nests ; the males become very savage, and their note of defiance — hrooming, as it is called by the Dutch — is heard in all directions. The bird inflates his neck in a cobra-like fashion, and gives utterance to three deep OSTRICHES. Ill roars ; the two first short and staccato, the third very prolonged. Lion-hunters all agree in asserting that the roar of the king of beasts and that of the most foolish of birds are identical in sound ; with this difference only, til at the latter, when near, resembles the former very far away. T , when hunting in the interior, has often been deceived by the sound — expecting a lion, and finding only an ostrich. When the birds are savage — quei, as the Dutch call it — they become very aggressive, and it is impossible to walk about the camps unless armed with a weapon of defence called a " tackey." This is simply a long and stout branch of mimosa, with the thorns all left on at the end. It seems but a feeble protection against a foe who, with one stroke of his immensely powerful leg, can easily kill a man ; the kick, no less violent than that of a horse, being rendered infinitely more dangerous by the formidable claw with which the foot is armed. Those, however, who are well practised in the use of the tackey are able, with the coolness of Spanish bull-fighters, to stand and await the charge of the terrible assailant. They allow him to come to what, to the inexperienced eye, seem unpleasantly close quarters ; then, just as he prepares to strike, the tackey is boldly thrust into his face. The thorns oblige him to close his eyes, and he can only run blindly forward ; the bearer of the tackey springing on one side, and gaining time to proceed some distance on his way, be- fore the silly bird has recovered from his bewilderment and makes a fresh charge, when the weapon is again presented. 113 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Fortunately, you are never assailed by more than one ostrich at a time ; for in the large camps of some two thousand acres each — ^in which the birds are not fenced off in pairs, but live almost in the freedom of wild creatures — each one has his own domain, separa- ted from those of others by some imaginary boundary- line of his own, visible only to himself, but as clearly marked out as the beat of a London policeman. There, in company with one or perhaps two hens, he dwells monarch of all he surveys ; any other ostrich daring to invade his territory is at once attacked ; and the human intruder is closely followed, his tackey in constant requisition, until the feathered lord of the land has seen him safely off the premises. Immediately after thus speeding the parting guest, the most savage bird is quite harmless ; he dismisses you from his thoughts, and walks quietly back, feeding as he goes. And in the distance you see the head and long neck of his neighbour, whose kingdom you have now entered, and whose sharp eyes spied you out the instant your foot crossed his frontier. He now advances towards you with jerky, spasmodic movements, as if he were bowing you a welcome ; this, however, is far from his thoughts, and after sitting down once or twice to give you his challenge — whereby he hopes you will be intimidated — he trots up defiantly, and the tackey's services are again required. Thus, during a morning's walk through the camps, you may be escorted in succession by four or five vicious birds, all determined to have your life if possible, yet held completely in check by a few mimosa thorns. OSTRICHES. 113 When an ostrich challenges he sits down ; and, flap- ping each broad wing alternately, inflates his neck, and throws his head back, rolling it from side to side, and with each roll striking the back of his head against his bony body with so sharp and resounding a blow that a severe headache seems likely to be the result. A person on horseback is even more obnoxious to the ostriches than a pedestrian ; and a ride through the camps enables one to realize how true to life is the description, in the Book of Job, of a vicious bird : " What time she lif teth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider." The creature, when prepar- ing for an attack, draws itself up, stands on tiptoe, stretches its neck to the full extent, and really seems to gain several feet in height. And, indeed, it does its best to knock you oif your horse. T once saw a man riding as desperately as Tam O'Shanter, with an ostrich in close pursuit. It kept up with him, helping his horse along with an occasional well-placed kick ; while the unhappy rider, hoping to intimidate his assailant, was again and again firing off his revolver into the air, but without efl'ect. As the new arrival in a country subject to earth- quakes begins by thinking very lightly of these dis- turbances, but finds his appreciation of their importance increase with every successive shock ; so the new chum in South Africa, inclined at first to look with contempt on the precautions taken against savage ostriches, learns in time to have a proper respect for the foolish, innocent-looking creatures, whose soft, dark-brown 114 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. eyes look at him so mildly (when he is on the right side of the fence) that he finds it impossible to believe the stories told him of their wickedness, and nothing but a closer acquaintance can undeceive him. On one of the farms a sturdy new-comer, six feet in height, starting for an early morning walk, was cautioned against going into a certain camp where the ostriches were dangerous. He laughed at his friends' advice, told them he was " not afraid of a dicky-bird ! " and — disdaining the proffered tackey — started ofi' straight- way in the forbidden direction. He did not return home to dinner ; a search was made for him ; and eventually he was found, perched up on a high iron- stone boulder; just out of reach of a lai-ge ostrich, which was doing sentry, walking up and down, and keeping a vicious eye on him. There he had sat for hours, nearly roasted alive (ironstone boulders in the Karroo can get so hot in the sun that it blisters your hand to touch tliem) ; and there he would have had to sit till sundown, had not the timely appearance of his friends relieved him of the too-pressing attentions of the " dicky-bird." Another gentleman had a theory that any creature, however savage, could be subdued — " quelled," as he said— by the human eye. One day he tried to quell one of his own ostriches ; with the result that he was presently found by T in a very pitiable pre- dicament, lying flat on the ground ; while the subject of his experiment jumped up and down on him, occa- sionally varying the treatment by sitting on him. OSTRICHES. 115 T once bought an ostrich which had killed two men ; and which, although an unusually fine Lird, was, on account of its evil reputation, sold to him for a very low price. Ostriches ap[)ear to have a strong aversion to all the negro race. They attack Kaffirs and Hotten- tots much more readily than they do their white masters ; and although — as has just been seen — they are very far from showing that amount of respect for the latter which is desirable, they seem — except during the breeding season — to stand in some sort of awe of a white man as compared with the "niggers," for whom they have the deepest contempt. They are uncertain, too, and take sudden and un- accountable dislikes. One poor Kaffir woman, coming up to work at the house, was attacked, inside the gate, by one of the tame old ostriches, which — looking out for scraps thrown from the kitchen, stealing the fowls' food, or now and then picking up and swallowing a delicious piece of soap left for an unguarded moment on the washing-machine — prowled about round the house, and of which no one had ever dreamed of being afraid. Her solitary and scanty skirt, torn from the top to the bottom, showed how narrow had been her escape ; and she looked livid under her dark skin, as she came in to ask me for needle and thread to repair the rent. It has several times happened that one of our herds, in danger of his life, has been obliged, in self-defence, to kill a vicious ostrich ; and, the finest and most promising birds — naturally the most savage — being invariably the victims, the loss is always a serious one. ii6 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. It is indeed no small trial, when, perhaps just as you are comfortably seated at the breakfast table, the black face of " April," " August," or " September "—fraught with bad news, and looking very frightened and ashamed — is suddenly thrust in at the door ; and, with much rolling of white eyeballs, a tragic tale is told, in the most dismal of voices, and with many harrowing details, of how " Red Wing " or " White Neck " was quei, and attacked the narrator up in the big camp ; with the sad consequence that you. are now minus one of the best birds on the farm. But the poor fellow cannot be blamed or fined for defending his life ; orders are given to pluck and bring down the unfortunate bird's feathers — the last he will ever yield — and some- how a dead bird's plumes always seem the most beautiful — " And then to breakfast, with What appetite you have." Toto, although in general no coward, could never, after a severe kick he received on first coming to the farm, be brought to face a savage bird. Collies can, however, be made very useful in collecting and driving ostriches ; and Mr. Evans, of Rietfontein, one of our neighbours, had several which were perfectly trained ; working as well with the birds as their relatives in Scotland and Wales do with sheep. A few of our birds were fenced off in breeding-camps ; each pair having a run of about one hundred acres. One of these camps was directly opposite the house ; and from the windows we could observe the regularity OSTRICHES. 117 ■with which the two birds, sitting alternately on the eggs, came on and off at their fixed times. The cock always takes his place upon the nest at sundown, and sits through the night — his dark plumage making him much less conspicuous than the light-coloured hen ; with his superior strength and courage, too, he is a better defender of the nest against midnight marauders. At nine in the morning, with unfailing punctuality, the hen comes to relieve him, and take up her position for the day. At the end of the six weeks of sitting, both birds, faithfully as the task has been shared between them, are in a very enfeebled state, and miserably poor and thin. One undutiful hen — having apparently imbibed ad- vanced notions — absolutely refused to sit at all; and the poor husband, determined not to be disappointed of his little family, did all the work himself ; sitting bravely and patiently day and night, though nearly dead with exhaustion, till the chicks were hatched out. The next time this pair of birds had a nest, the cock's mind was firmly made up that he would stand no more nonsense. He fought the hen ; giving her so severe a thrashing that she was all but killed — and this Petruchio-like treatment had the desired effect, for the wife never again rebelled, but sat submissively. Very different from this couple were the Darby and Joan in the eamp opposite our windows. One unlucky morning the hen, frightened by a Kaffir's dog, ran into the wire fence, and was so terribly injured that she had to be killed. For two years poor Daiby was a dis- ii8 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. consolate widower, and all attempts to find him a satisfactory second wife were unavailing ; several hens, which, soon after his loss, were in succession placed in his camp, being only rescued in time, and at the tackey's point, from being kicked to death. The bare idea of there being anything pathetic about an ostrich seems absurd — and indeed this is the only instance I have known of anything of the kind — but it was truly piti- ful to watch this poor bird, as, day after day, and nearly all day long, he wandered up and down, up and down, the length of his camp, in the hard, beaten track worn by his restless feet along the side of the fence. When his time of mourning at length came to an end, and poor Joan's long- vacant place was filled, we at first rejoiced. But we soon doubted whether, after all, he had not been happier as a widower. For the new wife, a magnificent hen, considerably above the average size, had him in complete subjection; his spirit seemed quite broken, probably with long fretting, and he made no attempt to hold his own, but was for the rest of his days the most hen-pecked — or ought I to say hen- kicked? — of husbands. Some amount of stratagem o was even necessary on my part, to ensure that he had enough to eat (this pair of birds, being near the house, were under my special care, and during droughts were daily fed by me) ; for every time he came near the food, the greedy hen would persistently drive him away, standing on tiptoe and hissing viciously at him— and I soon saw that it was useless to attempt feeding them together. But the poor, ill-used old bird and I were OSTRICHES. iig good friends, and quite understood one another; and at all sorts of odd times — watching for those golden opportunities when his tyrant was safely out of sight at the further end of the eainp — he would come down to the fence and look out for me, and I would bring him a good feed of mealies. As a father. Darby was no less devoted than he had formerly been as a husband; and to please him we allowed his chicks to remain with him, and set the whole family free to roam where they liked about the veldt; breaking through the usual rule, which is to take the little birds from the parents when two or three ■days old, and herd them near the house. For they never become as tame when brought up by the old ones as when accustomed from the first to human society. These poor little birds, I am sorry to say, did not flourish under parental guardianship ; indeed, it was not long before they were all dead. For their well- meaning, but over-zealous father, apparently thinking no veldt good enough for them, kept them continually on the move ; and, in his perpetual search for " fresh woods and pastures new," took them such long distances that he literally walked them as well as himself to death. Not many days after the last chick's departure, Darby's own poor body, worn to a skeleton by these restless wanderings, following on six weeks of incuba- tion, was foxind on the veldt. When, as sometimes happens, one solitary chick is reared at the house, it becomes absurdly and often inconveniently tame. A friend of ours, on returning 120 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. to his farm at the end of a severe thunderstorm, found that an ostrich's nest had been washed away. Some of the eggs were rescued from the water, and — being of course deserted by the parents — were placed in an incubator, where, contrary to all expectations, one chick came out. This bird, Jackie, became the tamest and most audacious of pets ; and, like many another spoilt only child, was often a terrible nuisance. All the little niggers about the place had a lively dread of him ; and he requisitioned their food in the boldest manner. As they sat on the ground at meals, with plates of boiled pumpkin and rice in their laps, he would come up, and, stretching his snake-like necl^ over their heads, or insinuating it under their arms, would coolly help himself to the contents of one plate after another. Occasionally he would make for the unhappy youngsters in so menacing a manner as to frighten them into dropping their plates altogether ; thea, while his victims ran away crying, he would squat on his heels among the debris, and regale his enormous appetite at leisure. But one day retribution came. Being free of the kitchen — simply because no one could keep him out — he was not long in observing that the pumpkin and rice always came out of one particular pot ; and, the idea suddenly occurring to him that he could do no better than go straight to the fountain-head for his favourite dish, he walked up, full of joyful anticipation, to the fire where this pot was bubbling. The cook — who, being mother to several of the ill-used children, did not love OSTRICHES. 121 Jackie — offered no friendly interference to save him from his fate ; and, plunging his bill into the pot, he greedily scooped up, and, with the lightning-like rapidity of ostriches, tossed down his throat, a large mouthful of boiling rice. Poor fellow 1 the next moment he was dancing round the kitchen, writhing with agony, shaking his head nearly off, and twisting his neck as if bent on tying it in a knot. Finally he dashed wildly from the house ; the cook, avenged at last for all the dinners he had devoured, called after him as he stumbled out at the door, " Serve you right, Jackie ! " — and away he fled across the veldt, till the last that was seen of him was a little cloud of white dust vanishing on the horizon. He returned a sadder and a wiser bird ; and it was long before he again ventured inside the kitchen. When about a year old, Jackie was sold to a farmer who had long coveted him ; and who, no doubt, soon repented of his purchase. He was now sufficiently strong to give a good hard kick ; and, being a more daring freebooter than ever, and no respecter of per- sons, he would march up and attack any one he saw carrying food, or what he thought might be food; endeavouring, by a well-aimed blow, to strike it out of their hands ; his evil design generally succeeding. At length his master, tired of hearing constant complaints of his conduct, and impatient of his perpetual intru- sion indoors, tried putting him into a camp. There, however, he obstinately refused to remain. As soon as he was put in, he would squat down, laying his head 122 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. and neck on the ground ; then, making himself as flat as possible, he would " squirm " out, not without some difficulty, under the lowest wire of the fence. It was impossible to keep him in ; and he was left to his own devices, calmly regarded as a necessary evil, and allowed to be as great a nuisance as he liked. But poor Jackie soon ceased from troubling — his end, as may well be imagined, being brought about by no other cause than his own moral obliquity. One day he wandered down to the river, where some Kaffir women were washing clothes ; their children, a group of little animated nude bronzes, playing near them. One little fellow, who was eating, was of course instantly spied out by the covetous Jackie ; who rushed to kick him, but in so doing tumbled down in the rocky bed of the river, and broke his own leg. The inevit- able result followed, and Jackie, like all other broken- legged ostriches, had to be killed. The hen ostrich lays every alternate day ; and if, for each egg laid, one is taken from the nest, she will con- tinue laying until she has produced from twenty to thirty. One, which belonged to T , laid sixty eggs without intermission. If no eggs are taken away, the hen leaves off laying as soon as she has from fifteen to twenty ; the latter being the greatest number that can be satisfactorily covered by the birds. The surplus eggs are placed in incubators. It is best not to give much artificial food to the birds while sitting ; as, if overfed, they become restless, and are liable to desert the nest. Every morning and evening the nest, or rather the OSTRICHES. 123 shallow indentation in the sandy ground which forms this simplest o£ all " homes without hands," is left un- covered for a quarter of an hour, to allow the eggs to cool. The sight of nests thus apparently deserted has probably given rise to the erroneous idea that the ostrich leaves her eggs to hatch in the sun. The passage in the book of Job : " Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust," is also generally supposed to point to the same conclusion, though in reality there can be no doubt that the latter part of the sentence simply applies to the warming of the eggs by the heat of the bird's body as she sits over them in her dusty nest. Stupid though she is, she has more sense than to believe in the possibility of the sun hatching her eggs ; she is indeed quite aware of the fact that, if allowed to blaze down on them with untempered heat, even during the short time she is off the nest, it would be injurious to them ; and therefore, on a hot morning, she does not leave them without first placing on the top of each a good pinch of sand. This she does in order that the germ — which, whatever side of the egg is uppermost, always rises to the highest point — may be shaded and protected. Having thus set her nest in order, she walks off, to fortify herself with a good meal for the duties of the, day. And now comes the white-necked crow's chance* for which, ever since at earliest dawn he drew out his artful old head from under his wing, he has been patiently waiting. An ostrich-egg is to him the daintiest of all delicacies ; but, nature not having be- 124 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. stowed on him a bill strong enough to break its hard shell, he is only able, by means of an ingenious device, to regale on the interior. He carefully watches till the parent's back is turned, and she is a good distance from the nest ; then, flying up into the air, he drops a stone from a great height with a most accurate aim, and breaks an egg. He makes good use of his quarter of an hour ; and he, no less than the hen ostrich, has had an ample meal by the time the latter returns to the nest. Perhaps to-morrow she will not wander so far away. This crow, inveterate egg-stealer though he is, has a most respectable and clerical appearance ; and with his neat suit of black and his little white tie he looks indeed " unco guid." The Boers — possibly on account of this pious exterior — have a legend to the effect that these birds are the " ravens " which fed Elijah. They say that after the birds had carried the meat, a little of the fat remained on their necks ; in commemoration of which their descendants have this one conspicuous white patch on their otherwise black plumage. Num- bers of tortoise-shells, some of immense size, are found about the veldt ; which have been broken in the same manner as the ostrich-eggs, and their inmates devoured, by these crows ; who thus reverse the process by which, some twenty-three centuries ago, the eagle, dropping his tortoise on what seemed to him a convenient stone for his purpose, smashed the bald head of poor ^schylus. Among the denizens of the veldt the crows, unfortu- nately, are not the only appreciators of ostrich-eggs : OSTRICHES. 125 and our worst enemies are the jackals. In lonely, far-off camps they plunder many promising nests ; rolling the eggs away with their paws, sometimes to great distances. Occasionally, too, little chicks fall victims. We waged deadly war against the depredators ; making liberal use of strychnine pills to " take us the foxes, the little foxes," which, finding no vines to spoil in the Karroo, were instead spoilers of ostrich nests. On a large vine-farm in the Atlas Mountains, where, after leaving the Cape, we spent some months, we were able to note the accuracy of this passage of Scripture — in which, I am told, the word rendered " foxes " ought in reality to have been translated "jackals." These animals did indeed work terrible havoc among the vines, eating incredible numbers of grapes ; and T did much good by his introduction among them of the South African plan of poisoning, to which many suc- cumbed. The pills, enclosed in pieces of fat, are dropped about the veldt ; generally by a man on horse- back, towing behind him a piece of very " high '' meat, which, fastened by a riem (narrow strip of hide) to the horse's tail, drags along the ground. By-and-by the jackals, attracted by the odour of meat, come out ; and, following along the route taken by the poisoner, find and eat the tempting pieces of fat. In the morning a good number are sure to be found dead ; the survivors, apparently concluding that there is something very wrong about the place, take themselves off for a time to another neighbourhood ; and the comparative silence which reigns at night is a pleasant change after the chorus of their querulous, uncanny voices. 126 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. The partiality of jackals and crows for ostrich-eggs, expensive though it is to us, reflects credit on their taste ; for the eggs are certainly delicious. Those which, being useless for setting, found their way into my kitchen, were always most acceptable ; and I have never had lighter cakes, nicer omelettes, custards, etc., than those made from them. And then they go so far,! Two large square biscuit tins can be filled to over- flowing with a noble batch of sponge finger biscuits, for which only one egg has been used. In spite of its large size — equalling twenty-four fowls' eggs — an ostrich-egg has no coarse flavour. It takes an hour to boil one hard ; in which state it is a splendid article of food for baby ostriches. Ostrich -eggs were much prized by the ancient Egyptians ; and Gardiner Wilkinson tells us that they " were required for some ornamental or religious use, as with the modern Copts ; and, with the plumes, formed part of the tribute imposed by the Egyptians on conquered countries.'' Not long ago, T and I were much amused by the discovery, among copious notes in an old Bible dated 1770, of the following passage from a quaint old writer : " The Ostrich, which the Arabians call Naama, is a wild Bird of the Shape of a Goose, but much bigger than that; it is very high upon its Legs, and has a Neck of more than four or five Spans long : The Body is very gross, and in its Wings and Tail it has large Feathers black and white (like those of the Stork) and some grey ; it cannot fly, but it runs very fast ; in OSTRICHES. 127 which it is much assisted by the Motion of its Wings and Tail : And when it runs, it wounds itself with the Spurs which it has on its Legs. It is bred in the dry Desarts, where there is no Water, and lays t^ or twelve Eggs together in the Sand, some as lai'ge as a great Bowl, and some less. They say this Bird hath so little Memory that as soon as she hath made an End of laying her Eggs, she forgets the Place where she left them ; so that when the Hen comes to a Place where there are Eggs, let them be her own or not, she sets abrood upon them, and hatches them ; and as soon as the Chickens are hatched, they immediately run about the Country, to look for Meat; and they are so nimble, when they are little, before their Feathers grow, that 'tis impossible to overtake them." One is inclined to think that the old author, Marmol, from whose " History of Africa " the above passage is quoted, cannot have written from any very accurate acquaintance with the Dark Continent ; at any rate, it is not likely that he ever saw an ostrich, or he would have known that it possesses no spurs. It is a strange fact that the most savage ostrich, if he comes up and finds you between himself and his nest, does not, as would naturally be supposed, rush to defend his eggs, and, if possible, kick you to death, but is instantly changed into the most abjectly submissive of creatures. " 'Umble " as Uriah Heep, he squats at your feet; making a peculiar rattling noise with his wings, biting the ground, snapping his bill, closing his eyes, and looking the very embodiment of imbecility 128 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. as he meekly implores you to spare his eggs. This suppliant posture is, however, not to be trusted ; and, if tackey-less, you had better remain at the nest until assistance — or night — comes, for if once the positions of yourself and bird are reversed, " Richard's himself again." He squats, no longer in servile entreaty, but in defiance ; and his challenge is promptly followed by a charge. The hen ostrich, being destitute of a voice, has but one way of calling her chicks, which is by that same rattling and rustling of the wings. In strong contrast to the usual anxiety of the paternal ostrich for his nest was one case of which we heard. In a breeding-camp, containing a cock and two hens, troublesome complications had arisen. One hen persisted in sitting, while the other was as resolutely bent on laying ; and, the struggles of the two rivals for the possession of the nest being extremely perilous to the eggs, the Boer to whom the trio belonged removed the laying hen from the enclosure. Now came the cock's turn to be excited. The departed hen was evidently his favourite wife ; and, disconsolate at her loss, he ran restlessly about the camp for some time, brooming repeatedly ; then, as if struck by some sudden impulse — probably of spite against his master — he ran to the nest, on which he deliberately jumped till he had broken every egg. One of our birds was a morose ,old bachelor. Whether he had remained single from choice, or whether his surly temper had made him so unpopular that no hen would cast in her lot with him, we knew OSTRICHES. 129 not ; but there he was, living in solitary grandeur on the lower slope of our big mountain. Every time we took a certain favourite walk, a portion of which he had marked out as his beat, he would dispute the right of way with us ; resenting the invasion of his solitude with more fuss than was ever made by the father of the largest family of chicks. Sometimes he would lie in ambush, and rush out at us from imex- pected places, with all the artfulness of a rogue elephant. Fortunately, his domain being on the mountain-side, there was plenty of high bush, behind which it was not diflBcult to dodge him. CHAPTER yn. OSTRICHES (.continued). Vagaries of an incubator — Hatching the chicks — A bad egg — Human foster-mothers — Chicks difficult to rear — "Yellow-liver" — Cruel boys — Chicks herded by hen ostrich — Visit to Boer's house — A carriage full of ostriches — " The melancholy Jaques " — Ostriches at sea — A stampede — Runaway birds — Branding — Stupidity of ostriches— Accidents— Waltzing and fighting — Ostrich soup — An expensive quince — A feathered Tantalus — Strange things swallowed by ostriches— A court-martial — The ostrich, or the diamond? — A visit to the Zoo. An incubator, considerably increasing as it does the number of chicles that can be hatched, is of course of the greatest value on a farm. We had one, capable of holding sixty eggs ; and a " finisher," in which thirty more could be placed. Two paraffin lamps, kept con- stantly burning, heated the large tank of the incubator ; and a thermometer, inserted in the water, had to be carefully watched in order that the temperature of the latter might neither exceed nor fall below 103°. Be- neath the tank — so that the eggs, as in nature, might be heated from above — were four drawers, each with compartments for fifteen eggs. I was appointed mana- ger of the incubator ; and morning and evening— OSTRICHES. 131 following the example of the hen ostrich — I gave the eggs their quarter of an hour's cooling by allowing the drawers to stand open ; also, as she does, I carefully turned each egg. The regulation of the temperature was a matter of some anxiety, -and enabled me — especially on first undertaking the work — to form a very good idea of the responsibilities of a vestal tending the sacred fire. Some mischievous imp seemed to be perpetually at work causing: that thermometer to indulsre in the wildest vagaries. Perhaps just one degree of the re- quired temperature would be wanting ; and though, tor the best part of the morning, I had been coming anxiously every ten minutes or so to look at the ther- mometer, it refused, with all the perversity of "a watched pot," to rise above 102°. Then at last, a little off my guard, and absorbed in one of the numerous other home duties, I inight possibly forget the incu- bator's existence for a little while ; and, on suddenly remembering and running to it, find that the treacher- ous mercury had jumped up two or three degrees. Then the drawers would have to be thrown open, and the contents of several jugs of cold water wildly dashed in through the opening at the top of the incubator — and when at last, by still trembling hands, the ther- mometer was readjusted in the said opening, it would probably register as many degrees below as it had just been above 103°. T was away for three weeks during the time the incubator was in full work ; and so great was the anxiety which haunted me, lest on 132 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. his return I should present him with some sixty cooked birds, that I set an alarum every night for two o'clock, to assure myself that the temperature was playing me no tricks. When within about eight or ten days of hatching, the chick can be felt moving about in the egg ; and later on, when nearly ready to come out, he is heard squeaking, and tapping with his bill against the shell. Then at last, one day, when you come to turn the eggs in the finisher, where they are placed for the last fort- night, you find one with a hole in it — generally a three-cornered piece is knocked clean out — and in the opening a pinkish, soft-looking bill is making impatient movements, and a bright eye is peeping at you as knowingly as though already well acquainted with all the ways of a world on which its owner has yet to 3nter. An ostrich, by the way, seems far more intelli- gent as a baby than he ever is in after life. A strong chick is generally able to free himself, by his own unaided efforts, from the shell ; but if after a certain number of hours he is not out, it becomes necessary to assist him. This, however, requires ex- treme gentleness and caution, as there is great risk of inflicting injury ; and, although I have helped many young ostriches into the world — losing but one patient in all my practice — I always preferred leaving that delicate work to nature. And yet there is something so tempting about these little half-opened parcels ; one always longs to undo them and have a full view of the contents. The moment the little fellow is out of the OSTRICHES. 133 egg, he seems to swell out, and looks so large that you wonder how he can possibly have been packed away in such a small space ; and I am quite sure that the task of replacing him in the shell would as far surpass the powers of " all the king's horses and all the king's men," as did the reintegration of Humpty Dumpty. Occasionally — and even at this time and distance it is hardly to be recalled without a shudder — the incu- bator would contain a bad egg. Imagine all the horrors of a bad hen's egg, multiplied by twenty-four ! The whole drawer would be so pervaded by the odour that it was difficult for some time to discover the actual offender ; and when at last it revealed itself by an un- canny moisture exuding through the shell, an amount of courage and caution was required for its removal and safe depositing outside, which suggested very flat- tering comparisons of one's own conduct with that of a soldier winning the V.O. by carrying away a live shell. An incautious friend of T 's was too closely in- vestigating a doubtful ostrich-egg, when it exploded with a loud report. He was an old gentleman, with a beautiful white beard ; and his condition, as described by T , who — luckily from a safe distance — wit- nessed the accident, is best left to the imagination. Suffice it to say that an immediate and prolonged bath was imperative, and that a whole suit of clothes had to be destroyed. In the days when chicks were so valuable, people who did not possess incubators sometimes had recourse to a strange way of hatching those eggs w^hich, during 134 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. the sitting, were either left orphaned by accident, or, as in the case of Jackie, deserted in consequence of floods. Some poor old Hottentot woman would be carefully tucked up, in company with the eggs, under numerous blankets, — where she would remain bed- ridden until she had hatched out the last chick. Some- times, even, the stout, lethargic Dutch vrouw herself, to who3e indolent nature the task was doubtless coaorenial enough, would perform the part of foster-mother. When, either by natural or artificial means, the little ostriches are safely brought into the world, the farmer's next anxiety is to keep them there. They do well enough on the coast ; but in the Karroo they are most difficult to rear, and our experience with them has been sad and disheartening. Numbers of them die, when about a month or five weeks old, from an epi- demic which comes and goes in the strangest manner. During a whole season, for instance, one farmer will lose nearly every chick ; while brood after brood will be successfully reared by another at no very great distance. Next year, perhaps, it is the turn of the latter to be the sufferer ; and vice versa. Our unlucky year had a most promising beginning, unusually good rains having filled the country with nests ; yet at the end of the season all we had to show of the rising generation of ostriches was a poor little troop of fifteen lanky, ragged-looking creatures, which through some rare toughness of constitution had survived the perils of infancy — over two hundred having succumbed. The disappointment of losing the chicks is much in- OSTRICHES. 135 tensified by the fact that they always begin so well. For the first three weeks nothing can be more en- couraging than the appearance of the stout, sturdy toddlers ; they eat voraciously and are full of life and spirits, waltzing, in absurd imitation of their elders, to show their joy on being first let out in the morning — the effort usually ending in a comical sprawl on the back. Again and again comes the delusive hope that the spell is broken at last ; that the luck has turned, and that this little brood is really going to live. But alas ! — one morning, during that fatal fourth week, you notice that one little head, instead of being held up saucily and independently, is poking forward and downward in a dejected manner with which you are only too well acquainted. You know at once that the owner of that head is doomed, and that it will not be long before most, if not all, of his brethren show the same dreaded symptom. The disease is quite incurable — indeed, I have never known of an ostrich, old or young, recovering from any illness whatever ; and though we tried all possible kinds of medicine, diet, and treatment, resolutely refusing to despair of any case while a spark of life remained, those chicks per- sisted in dying, sometimes at the rate of three or four a day. I was hospital nurse, and so deeply did I take to heart the loss of patient after patient that it became a joke with T ; and a plentiful sprinkling of grey happening just at this time to make its appearance on my head, he still attributes each silver thread to a little 136 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. dead ostrich. A post-mortem examination of chicks which have died of this disease shows the liver to be of the bright colour of orange-peel. Internal parasites also destroy a good many chicks ; and altogether the little lives are precarious, and every troop of young birds successfully reared in the Karroo is a triumph. For the first two or three months the chicks are herded near the house by boys, whose duty it is to keep them well supplied with prickly pear leaves and other green food, cut up small. This work ought to take up the greater part of the young herd's time ; but — small boys beiag no more satisfactory as servants in the Karroo than they are anywhere else — we found it necessary to keep a very strict watch ; and often during the day, however busy I might be, I would " make time " to run down to the shady spot which was the chicks' place of encampment — generally to find the infants hungry, and their useless nurse either asleep or plunged in some absorbing business of his own with a knife and a piece of wood. Sometimes, too, the boys, getting impatient with the chicks, were rough and cruel ; one budding criminal especially was several times caught making footballs of his innocent charges, kicking them up several feet into the air. And on a farm where T was once staying, a juvenile black fiend was found to have deliberately broken the legs of some twenty chicks under his care ; and, when asked the reason of his conduct, said, " They run about, give me too much trouble." OSTRICHES. 137 The chicks are often attacked by old birds — always spiteful to little ones which are not their own — and we have had several kicked to death by their vindictive elders. On a neighbouring farm, however, dwelt the usual exception to the rule, in the shape of an old hen, which — although herself not a mother — showed such a strong affection for chicks, and took such devoted care of them, that at last, much to her delight, she was appointed to the post of herd, vice the small boy, dis- missed as incorrigible. She filled the place of the latter far better than he had ever done ; leading the little creatures, with the greatest care, wherever the tenderest veldt was to be found; never losing her temper with them, or failing to bring the full number home to bed at sundown ; and altogether acquitting herself in a wonderfully sedate and business-like manner for so scatter-brained a creature as an ostrich. Her history ought of course to have ended here ; but truth compels me to state that at last, after she had successfully brought up many families of chicks, and had come to be respected and trusted as the steadiest and most useful of farm-servants, one day the idiotic ostrich-nature asserted itself ; she took a sudden and senseless fright — probably at nothing — lost her wits, bolted right away, leaving the chicks to get dispersed about the veldt, where only a few were found ; and was herself never heard of again. I think our friends at home would have been rather amused if they could have seen us one day, driving home from Mount Stewart with twelve ostriches in our 133 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. extremely small American spider. On our way to a farm where T had business we happened to pass a Dutchman's house, round the door of which we noticed a lively little brood of chicks running about. T of course no sooner saw them than he coveted them (he frankly confesses himself quite unable to keep the tenth commandment as far as ostriches are concerned) ; and we pulled up, accepted the hospitable invitation of the Boer, who doubtless read in our eyes the chance of " doing a deal," and went into the house, where, first of all, a solemn, silent, and apparently endless course of hand-shaking had to be gone through. The Cape Dutch living in very patriarchal fashion, there were not only a wife and many sons and daughters, but a well-preserved parental couple, a mother-in-law, several sons and daughters-in-law, and — needless to say — a crowd of children of all sizes, including two babies. All but the two last came forward one after another and gravely took our hands ; then we all sat round the room, solemnly looking at each other, and T and I felt as if we were at a funeral. We would have been thankful to have fled ; but — our own birds not having begun laying — we did so want those chicks, and we felt that it was worth while to endure somethino; for their sakes. Presently cofiee was handed round in huge cups, evidently more than half filled with sugar. The more highly the good vrouw wishes to honour you, the more horribly and sickeningly she over-sweetens your cup of tea or coffee ; and the syrup we had to drink on this OSTRICHES. 139 occasion left no doubt as to the kindly feeling of our hosts towards us. The entrance of the tray was the signal for conversation to commence ; and, once set free, it flowed abundantly. As we sat drinking our coffee and talking of everything but the business on which we were bent, our thoughts flashed back to Oriental bazaars, where these identical preliminaries are neces- sary to every bargain. The relationship of everybody present to everybody else was accurately explained to us, with much pointing, or clapping on the back, as the case might be ; and we in our turn were minutely questioned as to our names, ages, number of brothers and sisters and other relatives, etc. ; the women again bringing back Eastern recollections by their resem- blance to the inquisitive, chattering inmates of harems. Tlien T ventured to lead the conversation round to the coveted chicks ; but it was a little too soon, the subject was abruptly dropped, and we again waded through all manner of irrelevant talk until, a becoming time having elapsed, and the requirements of etiquette being satisfied, the business was allowed to commence. After such an inauguration, it may well be imagined that the bargain was not concluded in a hurry ; and we had paid a tediously long visit before we were at last the happy possessors of the chicks for which we had suffered so much ; and, putting them loose into the spider at our feet, where — being about as large as ducks — they made rather a tight fit, drove off with them. A little further on, at another Dutchman's house, 10 140 HOME LIFE ON A N OSTRICH FA RM. and with more bargaining, we bought a young paauw (pronounced " pow "). Tliis game bird (the great bus- tard) grows to an immense size, some being occasionally shot which measure nine feet across the outspread wings ; but fortunately — considering the number of passengers already on board — the present specimen, being but a chick, was no larger than a fine fowl. When we arrived at last at our original destination, the young ladies of the house presented us with a pretty little baby hare, which had just been caught ; and with this wee creature nestling in my lap, and the paauw and the ostriches all scrambling about among our legs and apparently not on the best of terms, we drove the twenty miles home. The poor paauw was very unhappy, and kept bewailing his fate in a long, weird cry, like the moaning of the wind ; whence he immediately acquired his name of " the melancholy Jaques." We had an amusing though rabher anxious journey ; for the spider — consisting simply of a kind of magnified Japanese tea-tray, supporting the lightest of seats, and mounted on four wheels, almost bicycle- like in their slenderness — was hardly the safest thing in which to convey restless live stock which was not fastened or secured in any way. The road, too, was terrible ; indeed, in one place it resembled a steep, rocky staircase, and after every bad jolt I looked anxiausly back to see if any of our creatures were lying on the ground. Thanks to T 's careful driv- ing, however, we brought the whole collection safely home, none the worse for their long journey. OSTRICHES. 141 Jaques, I may as well mention here, soon grew very tame ; but, being — we never knew why — persistently snubbed by all the other pets, was driven to the com- panionship of the fowls, with which he struck up a close friendship ; spending most of his time among them, and always coming with them to be fed. He would also forage about in the kitchen for scraps ; and, if disappointed in his search, would utter his des- ponding cry, and seem quite heart-broken. He was a handsome bird ; with delicately-pencilled plumage of different shades of grey and brown, a little neat crest on his head, and absurdly small feet, which looked as if they could not possibly support so large a body. Unfortunately, poor Jaques did not live to attain his full size, but poisoned himself with pumpkin seeds ; which had been carelessly dropped on the kitchen floor, in spite of repeated ordei's that these seeds — beinc a deadly poison to turkeys — should always be instantly burnt as soon as a pumpkin was cut open. We lost several of our turkeys through the neglect of this rule by the stupid Hottentot girls. Although little ostriches are such good travellers, it is anything but easy to transport full-grown ones about the world. They are wretched sailors, as T has found to his cost ; for when, some time ago, he took several pairs of birds to Sydney, about half of them died at sea. The day before they were shipped from Port Elizabeth they were placed in a store where there was a large quantity of tobacco, on which some cf thom regaled, with the consequence that before they 142 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. had been at sea a week three were dead from nicotine poisoning. T does not mind a story told against himself, so I may mention that a plan adopted by him with a view to ensuring the comfort and cleanliness of the birds during the voyage did not — as regards tlie former advantage — turn out quite a success. He car- peted the pens with cocoa-nut matting ; and when the vessel began to roll, and the birds sat down, their legs were terribly chafed and rubbed by the roughness "of the matting. And although T , to procure rag wherewith to bind up their sores, recklessly sacrificed shirts, pocket-handkerchiefs, and whatever other linen came to hand, several succumbed. The survivors did so well in Australia that arrangements were made to carry on ostrich-farming in that country on a large scale ; and T was about to export two hundred birds when the Cape Government, hearing of the pro- ject, imposed an export duty of £100 on every ostrich, and £5 on each egg. Ostriches are very bad railway travellers ; and avail themselves of every possible opportunity of coming to gr'ief in the cattle-trucks ; in which they often seem to be too closely packed. And as for their behaviour when travelling on foot, T has had some experience of the infinity of trouble they can give to those in charge of them. Having once bought a troop of ninety birds on the West Coast, he accompanied them himself on the long journey to Port Elizabeth. One night there was a stampede ; and when dayliglit broke over the vast plain not one ostrich was in sight. Of course OSTRICHES. 143 " there was mounting in hot haste ; " and poor T had to ride about the country after the runaways, which were so dispersed that they could only be collected by twos and threes. He had two days of very hard work before he succeeded in getting them all together again. When T first started ostrich-farming, a good many yeai's ago, he and his partners — little knowing the " kittle cattle " with which they had to deal — thought they would do without fencing. They soon found all their birds gone ; and had to scour the country for hundreds of miles in pursuit of their erratic stock, riding all their horses to death. Profiting by this sad experience, T has carefully fenced Swaylands in all directions except where the steepness of the mountain forms a natural barrier. Yet in spite of all the trouble and money spent — and enclosing is one of the heaviest of all expenses in- curred in starting a new farm — our birds were con- tinually getting away. We have unfortunately the great disadvantage of a high-road running straight through the farm ; and often a lazy Boer, thinking it too much trouble to kick away the stone with which he had propped the gate open while his waggons passed through — though T had carefully adjusted that gate to fall to and close itself — would cause the loss of several of our birds ; which of course might or might not be heard of again. On one occasion over twenty birds seem to have gone out in a body, owing to the gate being left open ; and only a few were eventually recovered. 144 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Some birds — artful old rovers who have been away before and have tasted the joys of freedom — will spend days running up and down along the side of the fence ; keeping the gate well in sight, and watching for the chance of its being left open. The family of one of our herds, living close to a gate, were supposed to act as lodge-keepers ; but — like most of the coloured race — they could never be induced to attend steadily and systematically to their duty, and we often found the gate wide open, inviting an exodus of birds. A fine of five shillings was imposed for each offence ; but the hardened sinners knew that T 's kind heart made him reluctant to enforce the penalty. Ostriches, when very firmly bent on escaping, and finding no gate open, will sometimes charge the fence ; and, though occasionally one will succeed in tumbling safely over and getting away, the clumsy performance most frequently results in broken legs. Runaway birds are far from being the least among the many trials of an ostrich-farmer's life ; and the annual losses caused by them even exceed in number those resulting from accident. Then they involve such endless waste of time and trouble. T was con- tinually riding about, searching and making inquiries, often in vain, for lost ostriches. When he was fortu- nate enough to find one, or hear of its whereabouts ; or perhaps see, from the advertised description of its brand, that it was an inmate of some distant pound, two of the herds — never spared without difiiculty from other OSTRICHES. 145 work — would be sent, often a long journey of three or more days, to bring it hack. A returning runaway, always a joyful sight to us, was also rather a laughable one. As he was marched along between the two men, each with a tight grip on his shoulder, he looked just like a pickpocket in the hands of the police, going to prison ; and a large piece of sacking, roughly sewn round his body to give his captors a firmer hold, made him appear as though already in convict dress. Then, to prevent his giving trouble on the road, his head would be in a bag. As often as not this bag would be one of my pillow-cases, surreptitiously abstracted by T from the linen- drawer before sending off the men. The very necessary operation of branding is per- formed on the ostrich's large, bare thigh, which seems just made for the purpose. Sometimes a considerable number of our young or newly-purchased birds would be branded at once. The irons with our brand, the Turkish crescent, were heated in a little portable forge placed in one corner of the plucking-kraal ; and each poor bird in turn received the mark of our ownership with an agonized start on one side ; the smell, and the hissing sound of the frizzling flesh always reminding me unpleasantly of the horrible performances of the Aissaoua, which (because every one else went) I was once foolish enough to go and see in Algiers. Old birds, which have frequently changed hands, some- times display a fine collection of initials and difi'erent designs, covering both thighs. 146 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. Unfortunately, branding is not always the safe- guard against theft which it is intended to be ; for theie are quite as many dishonest people in the Cape Colony as elsewhere (if not rather more), and it is no uncommon trick to obliterate the brand of a bird which has come astray by applying over it a much larger one — a " frying-pan " brand, as one hears it occasionally called by victims. As regards the stupidity of ostriches, although indeed they are falsely accused on one point ; that of hiding their small heads in the sand and imagining therefore that their large bodies are quite invisible to the foe, they do many other things quite as foolish, and — to revert again to the Book of Job — their character could not possibly have been more perfectly summed up than it is in the words : " Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to her understand- ing." And, indeed, no one looking at the ostrich's ridiculous little head, so flat immediately above the eyes as to leave no room for any brain, can wonder that he is an imbecile ; possessing even less intelligence than a common fowl, and not recognizing the man who has fed him every day for years, if the latter comes to the camp in a coat or hat to which he is unaccustomed. A friend of T 's was attacked and knocked down by one of his own ostriches, an old bird which had been constantly fed by him, but which, on seeing him for the first time in a black hat, took him for a stranger. Fortunately T was with him, and, having brought a tackey — in spite of assurances that none would be needed — came promptly to the rescue. OSTRICHES. 147 Ostriches are long-lived creatures ; indeed, it is im- possible to say what venerable age they may be capable of attaining, for, however old they become, they never show any signs of decrepitude, nor do their feathers deteriorate ; while, as for an ostrich djdng of old age, I do not believe any one has ever heard of such a thing. But it is accident which, sooner or later, ends the career of nearly every ostrich ; and in about ninety -nine cases out of a hundred the disaster is, in one way or another, the result of the bird's own stupidity. There surely does not exist a creature — past earliest infancy — more utterly incapable of taking care of itself than an ostrich ; yet he is full of conceit, and resents the idea of being looked after by his human friends ; and when, in spite of all their precautions for his safety, he has succeeded in coming to grief, he quietly opposes every attempt to cure his injuries, and at once makes up his mind to die. If his hurt is not sufficiently severe to kill him, he will attain his object by moping and re- fusing to eat — anyhow, he dies — often apparently for no other reason than because his master, against whom he has always had a grudge, wishes him to live. He seems to die out of spite ; just as a Hindoo servant will starve himself, waste rapidly away, and finally come and expire at the gate of the employer with whom he is offended. The worst and most frequent accidents by which ostriches contrive to make away with themselves are broken legs ; these — even were the patients tractable — it would be impossible to cure, owing to the strange 148 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. fragility of that limb which, as we have seen, is capable of inflicting so deadly a kick, — and any poor bird which breaks a leg has to be instantly killed. The bone seems almost as brittle as porcelain ; and a com- paratively slight blow is enough to splinter it into just such jagged and pointed fragments as result from breaking the spout of a china teapot. One very fruitful source of broken legs is the dervish-like habit ostriches have of waltzing when in particularly good spirits, and especially when first turned out of the kraal in the morning. They go sailing along so prettily in the briglit sunshine ; their beautiful wings, spread and erect, giving them at a little distance the appearance of white balloons ; but they have a sad tendency to become giddy and tumble down, and, knowing the frailty of their legs, we do not look with unmixed pleasure on the graceful perform- ance. Some birds, indeed, have the sense to save themselves by " reversing," which they do as cleverly as practised human dancers ; but the accomplishment seems rare among tiiem, and we calculate that waltzing costs us eight or ten per cent, per annum. Then they often fight savagely ; and the terrific " thud " of the blows they deal upon each other's bodies makes one tremble lest the next kick should fall on one of the brittle legs ; as indeed frequently happens. One day (a long drought having brought our "birds round the house), two splendid young cocks began fighting close to the windows. In an instant one of them was down ; with his leg snapped across, and all OSTRICHES. 149 but knocked off, by a frightful blow. T being from home, I had to go and inspect the poor bird's injuries — a sickening sight — and do him the only kind- ness possible, that of ordering his immediate execution. A couple of hours later, some of the flesh from one massive thigh was simmering in my stock-pot, sending forth a most delicious odour ; while both legs, joints from which indeed to " cut and come again," dwarfed the proportions of the Angora meat as they hung beside it, high out of reach of dog or jackal, in our open-air larder. For when by some untoward accident, such as that just described, our birds came suddenly by their death, we had the very small and melancholy consola- tion of eating them. That is to say, following the example of French frog-eaters, we ate the legs only ; there being no meat whatever on any other part of the creature's body. Instead of having a nice plump breast, like that of a fowl, turkey, or any other of the Carinatse or keel-breasted birds, the ostrich has a flat breast-bone and large ribs shaped wonderfully like those of a human being. His body is always bony ; and, however well you may feed him, the nourishment all seems to go to his legs. An unpleasant stiinginess prevents ostrich-steaks from being quite nice, but the soup is perfection. I never tasted any quite equal to it ; although some, made from the enormous tortoises found occasionally on the veldt, came very near it in goodness. The best beef -stock is not to be compared with ostrich-soup ; and I imagine the latter would be a most nourishing food for invalids. An ostrich which 150 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. has died in good condition has a large quantity of beautiful, soft, bright yellow fat. This, being most useful, is always carefully put away in jars ; and there is no fat equal to it for guns, saddles, harness, boots, etc. Besides waltzino: and fisrhting, there are endless other O CD O' ways in which ostriches — always ingenious in devising plans for their own destruction — manage to get their legs broken, and their throats consequently cut ; but the favourite form of felo-de-se is collision with the wire fences. These seem to have some magnetic attrac- tion for the vogels, as the Dutch call them — the word, appropriately enough, too, being pronounced " fools." " Another bird killed in the wires ! " How familiar any one living on an ostrich farm becomes with these words of woe ! Anything, or nothing — the latter in- deed more frequently — suffices either to frighten or embolden an ostrich into flinging himself headlong into the nearest fence. The appearance of a strange dog, for instance — and in spite of strict orders the Kaffirs always will bring dogs about the place — is quite certain, whatever may be the view taken of it by the ostrich, to lead but to one result. Say the dog is coming along on the opposite side of the fence. An imbecile bold- ness and pugnacity straightway inspire the ostrich ; he has no eyes for anything but the dog, and, leaving the fence entirely out of his calculations, he makes a mad, blind charge, which lands him well in the wires ; and if he is extricated from the latter with unbroken legs, his owner may be congratulated on a very unusual stroke of luck. If, on the other hand, the dog and bird jM- 'i ji P^jnl^';. « IBk'. ' . ^J^K^KKmS^l^ : 1 ^^^^■f ^.^^^^^m^^^^^. M ^^^v ' ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HJl k J Bk ^ *" '^'^Sk'^h^^^^^^^I 1 M ^l^^l 1 l^B^r'^^^l ^ f ' "Z. U3W l' Ostrich-chick. {Photographed front case in Stanley and African Exhibitioti^ Ostriches meditating escape through defective fence. / OSTRICHES. T5I arc on the same side of the fence — then, oven Bnrns's mouse had no greater " panic " in his " breastie " tlian that which impels the senseless biped to dash straight into the wires on his left ; though miles of unf eneed veldt, along which he might run with safety and soon distance the dog, stretch away to his right. The dog, of course, was not in either case troubling his head about the ostrich ; and only wonders what all the commotion is about. One of T 's birds performed the "happy de- spatch '' in quite a novel manner. Seeing a tempting quince growing on the further side of a hedge, he squeezed his head and neck through a narrow fork in the branches to reach it. Having secured and eaten his prize, he tried to draw his head back. But what was difficult enough before was now impossible ; his neck, bulging with the quince, kept him a prisoner, there was no one at hand to help, and the more he tugged and jumped in the frenzied manner of ostriches when held by the head, the more iirmly he stuck. And he was found at last, with his neck broken, and his head, to all intents and purposes, pulled off. Another ostrich, running up against some projecting ends of wire, tore his throat open ; inflicting so deep a gash as to divide the oesophagus. T (surgeon as well as everything else a colonist requires to be) went in quest of needle and thread to sew up the wound ; and, on returning, found that his patient, having dis- covered a sack of mealies, was busily helping himself to the contents; though with the unsatisfactory result 152 TJOME IIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. that the food, as soon as swallowed, tumbled out again through the slit in his throat. Nothing daunted, however, and apparently insensible to pain, the feathered Tantalus continued to feed ; wondering no doubt why, having eaten so much, he remained hungry. Thanks to T 's care, this bird, a rare exception to the general rule of wounded ostriches, actually recovered. Talking of the ostrich's food-passage, it is rather a curious sight to watch the progress of a large bone, or of a good beakful of mealies, as it travels down the long throat of the bird. During its journey, the large, slowly-moving lump is seen to make the circuit of the whole neck, and while passing round the back of the latter it looks comical indeed. Queer things sometimes find their way down this tortuous passage ; the exces- sive queerness of some of them giving rise to the fre- quent boast of those persons fortunately able to eat anything, fearless of consequences, that they " have the digestion of an ostrich." But those miscellaneous collections of old bones, glass and china, stones, jewel- lery, hardware, and odds and ends of all sorts, with which the creature stores his interior, till one is reminded of Mark Twain's " solid dog,'' fed on paving- stones — far from showing that an ostrich has a good digestion, are necessary to prevent his having a very bad one. They are, of course, simply his teeth, the millstones which grind his food ; only they are situated in his stomach instead of in his mouth, and, on an immensely-magnified scale, they only perform the work of those grains of sand with which the little cage-bird OSTRICHES. 153 keeps liimself healthy. Certainly ostriches occasionally show a sad want of discrimination, and make choice of articles which are quite unsuitable for their purpose. The manager's lighted pipe, for instance, was snatched and greedily swallowed by one of our birds before any one could stop him ; and for a while the thief was very anxiously watched to see if evil consequences would ensue. Luckily, however, the strange fare did not seem to disagree with him. Another bird picked a gimlet out of a post, in which, for one. moment, it had been carelessly left sticking — tossed it down his throat, and was none the worse for it. Ostriches, like magpies, are attracted by everything bright and glittering ; hence the frequent and just com- plaints brought against them for theft. But their own interior is the only hiding-place where they bestow the precious stones and other articles of jewellery which, whenever they have a chance, they will always steal. One day, while yet new to the colony, and to the ways of ostriches, I was standing with T by the side of one of the camps, looking over the fence at the birds, and much amused by the curious, dancing manner in which the creatures moved, as if hung on wires; when suddenly one of them, with a motion as quick as lightning, made a dash at my earring, a little round knob of gold, exactly the size and colour of a mealie (Indian corn seed), for which perhaps he took it ; and I only drew back just in time to save it — and probably a piece of the ear with it — from going down his throat. A newly-arrived gentleman was less fortunate. He, 154 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. too, was looking over a fence into a camp, when the sharp eye of an ostrich spied a beautiful diamond in his pin, and in an instant the jewel was picked out and swallowed. A kind of court-mar lial was held on the ostrich; the relative values of himself and of the diamond being accurately calculated, that his judges might decide whether he should live or die. Fortun- ately for him it was just the time when ostriches were expensive ; and his value was estimated at £100, while the diamond was only worth £90. Those £10 saved his life ; and the diamond was allowed to remain and perform the part of an extra-good millstone in his interior. Had he waited till the present time to furnish his internal economy thus expensively he would have been very promptly sacrificed. But people should not wear diamonds on ostrich farms. When, soon after our return from the Cape, we were staying for a time in London, one of our first expedi- tions was to the Zoo. There, with great delight and amusement, we walked about, looking up one after another of our old South African friends. But it was a cold, gloomy day ; and in the houses as well as out of doors the exiles from that sunny land seemed much depressed by their changed conditions of climate. The meerkats, curled up in a half-torpid state, were no longer the merry little rogues they had once been, when in happier days they stood on their hind legs outside their burrows, toasting their little backs in their native sunshine. The baboon was morose ; the snakes sleepy ; the African buffalo no longer terrible as in the wilds OSTRICHES. 135 of his old home, but a poor dejected creature, utterly- crushed and broken-hearted by long residence under cold, grey skies. Altogether, everything hailing from Austral Africa looked very homesick that dull day, with the sole exception of the secretary bird, which, after a long and persevering search — for old Jacob's sake — we at last succeeded in finding. He was a delightful bird ; as tame as our own old friend, and evidently a great favourite with his keeper. We felt wickedly covetous, as the man, pleased at the interest we showed, put the intelligent bird through a number of comical performances, which included the " killing " of a stuffed ratskin, kept for the purpose of displaying how the secretary in his wild state beats to death the mice, lizards, and other creatures on which he feeds. But where were the ostriches ? Just as actors, when they have a holiday, usually spend it in going to the theatre, so, of all the creatures in the Zoo, those we were most anxious to see were the great birds of whose company during the last few years we might reason- ably be supposed to have had enough. But no ostriches . were to be seen ; and the keeper of whom we inquired told us that all were dead. On asking the cause of death, we heard that it was " because the people fed them on pennies." We went to the office of the secretary of the gardens, and found that this statement was really true, and that the post-mortem examination of each poor bird had brought to light a large number of copper coins which had been swallowed. We were glad to hear that any ostriches kept in the gardens in 11 156 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. future were to be separated by glass from a public idiotic enough to waste its money in poisoning them. After this, we were quite able to believe a story told us of how a girl was one day seen at the Zoo, feeding these same unfortunate birds with some ten or twelve pairs of old kid gloves, evidently saved up for the purpose, and presented, one after another, tightly rolled up into a ball ; the creatures gulping them down quite as a matter of course, and looking out for more. CHAPTER VIII. MEERKATS. Meerkats plentirul in the Karroo — Their appearance — Intelligence — Fearlessness — Friendship for dogs — A meerkat in England — Meerkat an inveterate thief — An owl in Tangier — ^Taming full- grown meerkat — Tiny twins — A sad accident — Different characters of meerkats — The turkey-herd— Bob and the meerkat — "The Mouse." The little meerkats were surely created for the express purpose of being made into, pet animals. Certainly no prettier or funnier little live toys could possibly be imao-ined. Nearly every homestead in the Karroo has its tame meerkat, or more likely two or three, all as much petted and indulged, and requiring as much looking after, as spoilt and mischievous children. In their wild state, these little creatures are gregarious, and live, like the prairie-dogs and biscachas of the Western Continent, in deep holes underground, feed- in