Home Life on an Ostrich Farm — A Closer Reading

PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER.

Early ambitions realized--Voyage to South Africa--Cape Town and Wynberg--Profusion of flowers--Port Elizabeth--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

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 25

PLANTS OF THE KARROO.

We move up-country--Situation of farm--Strange vegetation of Karroo district--Karroo plant--Fei-bosch--Brack-bosch--Our flowers--Spekboom--Bitter aloes--Thorny plants--Wacht-een-Beetje --Ostriches killed by prickly pear--Finger-poll--Wild tobacco fatal to ostriches--Carelessness of colonists--Euphorbias-- Candle-bush 46

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

CLIMATE OF THE KARROO.

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 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 72

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 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 98

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

Meerkats plentiful 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" 157

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

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 thief's dose--Our ostrich-herd--A bride purchased with cows--English and natives at the Cape--Character of Zulus and Kaffirs 182

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

KARROO BEASTS, BIRDS AND REPTILES.

Leopard drowned in well--Baboons--Egyptian sacred animals on Cape farms--"Adonis"--A humiliating retreat--A baby baboon--Clever tricks performed by baboons--Adonis as a _Voorlooper_--A 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--_Aasvogels_-- Goat-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 dangerous of Cape snakes--Cobras--_Schaapsticker_ --Ugly 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

Hospitality of Cape colonists--Cheating and jealousy in business --Comfortless homes--Spoilt children--Education--The "Schoolmaster" --Convent schools--A priest-ridden nation--The _Nachtmaal_-- Old French names--A South African duke in Paris--Fine-looking men--Fat women--Ignorance of _Vrouws_--Boers unfriendly to English--A mean man 266

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. 1. Jacob. 2. Toto _Facing page_ 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. 1. Ostrich-chick (Photographed from case in Stanley and African Exhibition) 2. Ostriches meditating Escape through defective fence " 150

VIII. A Meerkat " 158

HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM.

PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER.