196 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



we did indeed, as Mark Twain has it, " know something 

 about woe." 



Nancy's immediate successor was in every respect 

 her opposite ; idle, impudent, surly, and dishonest ; 

 eating as much as two men, but doing no work that 

 was worth anything. She kept yawning all day with 

 lou I howls that were most depressing to hear; and 

 when I went into the kitchen I was pretty sure to find 

 her fast asleep, with head and arms on the table. 



Our next specimen was a nearly white half-caste, 

 with light-coloured wool, and pale-grey, dead-looking 

 eyes ; who always reminded us of one of the horrible, 

 sickly-looking white lizards, so common in Karroo 

 houses. She was half-witted, and most uncanny-look- 

 ing ; with such a ghastly, cold, unsympathetic manner 

 and stony stare that we named her Medusa. We could 

 have picked out many a better servant from the Earls- 

 wood Asylum. I was continually trying to think of 

 all the idiotic things she might possibly do, and thus 

 guard against them beforehand ; yet she always took me 

 by surprise by doing something ten times more stupid 

 than anything I had dreamed of. 



Then came a tall, gaunt old Mozambique negress ; in 

 appearance unpleasantly like an ancient Egyptian 

 mummy, and with clothing which looked as though it 

 had been " resurrected " at the same time as herself 

 from a repose of some three thousand years. Only a 

 dirty old black pipe, seldom absent from her lips, 

 savoured, not of the neci-opolis of Thebes or of Memphis, 

 but of the very vilest Boor tobacco. Besides being an 



