214 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



those that are found worth it, or after they have 

 been in your service a certain time. But it should 

 never be forgotten that higli wages will not tempt 

 natives to remain under a master they do not like, 

 unless they have got an eye to stealing some of his 

 stock, and few natives can be trusted not to do this if 

 they get the chance. 



The greatest difficult}^ is generally when men first 

 start farming. The native is very chary of going to a 

 master until he knows somethinfj of him, but after he 

 has been farming a few years, he establishes a certain 

 connection, and a supply of relatives of those with him, 

 or who have been with him, keep coming. And as long 

 as food is scarce in Kaffirland he is fairly well off for 

 labour ; but let there be two or three good seasons when 

 food gets plentiful, then is heard the cry from one end 

 of the colony to the other of the scarcity of labour, and 

 the farmers' hands are tied and all enterprise checked. 

 The servants he has become off-handed and indifferent, 

 and he becomes half worried to death to get along at all. 



Very often native servants bring a few head of 

 cattle with them. These make the most trustworthy 

 servants, but as their cattle are often infected with 

 lung-sickness, great care should be taken to isolate 

 these cattle for the first two or three months. 



As the native servants are not rationed with coffee 



