254 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



large cobra, which had startled his wife by paying an 

 unwelcome call. Another friend, exploring the depths 

 of her rather dark china-closet, put her hand on a 

 snake, comfortably coiled up beside the teacups. And 

 a ghastly tale we heard, of some one in bed, putting 

 his hand under the pillow at night for his pocket- 

 handkerchief, and pulling out a putf- adder, makes one 

 feel that — for those at least who live at the Cape — 

 there is more of common sense than of irony in Mark 

 Twain's assertion that it is safest not to go to bed. 



We were more fortunate than our neighbours, and 

 never during our four years' residence did I find in 

 any of our rooms that snake for which — as the old lady 

 for the burglar — I was continually looking. Perhaps we 

 owed our immunity to the narrow strips of horse-hair 

 material, with the rough edge pointing upwards, which 



T , having read somewhere that no snake will 



cross this prickly barrier, had nailed along the thres- 

 hold of each outer door. In the store, which did not 

 communicate with the house, and the door of which 

 w^as fortified by no friendly spikes, we did occasionally 

 kill a snake — attracted, no doubt, by the legions of fat 

 mice which ran riot among the sacks. The fowl-house, 

 too, would often be thrown into a state of wild excite- 

 ment and frenzied cackling by the visits of these 

 dreaded reptiles — most inveterate of egg-stealers. 



One day, soon after w^e came up-country, Nancy 

 suddenly burst in upon us, her red turban all awry, 

 and her speech so incoherent wdth agitation that the 

 only intelligible words were "Missis! Turkey 1 1 Missis ! 



