LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



781 



voracious appetite, and an enormous capacity for swallowing liz- 

 ards, rats, toads, frogs, locusts, young chickens, and kittens. 



The most serious drawback to the Cape Colony as a place for 

 settlement lies in the long droughts, which " are certainly very 

 trying ; indeed, they could not possibly be endured by any coun- 

 try less wonderfully fertile than South Africa, where it is calcu- 

 lated 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 burned up 

 under a sky from which every atom of moisture seems to have 

 departed. . . . The stock, with the pathetic tenderness of thirst, 



Ostriches in a Hot Wind. 



comes 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 

 appeals 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, making everybody tired, languid, headachy, and 

 cross. . . . Even our pets were sulky on a hot- wind day ; and as 

 for the ostriches, they were deplorable objects indeed, as they 



