238 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



chaser should insist on seeinoj- all corner and ano-le 

 beacons, and should find out whether any of these 

 are disjDuted by the neighbours, and if so, all par- 

 ticulars of the dispute, and had then better limit his 

 offer to what he considers the farm worth, less the 

 piece in dispute. Boundary lawsuits are exceedingly 

 cumbersome and expensive processes, the costs 

 generally exceeding the value of the land in dispute. 

 Accomj^anying every title deed is a diagram of the 

 land ; and, if a recent one, all angles are marked on 

 it, and it can be relied upon, and any missing corner- 

 stone can easily be fixed again by a surveyor ; but all 

 the early surveys were most carelessly made, and no 

 angles being given on the diagram it may be impossible 

 to determine the true position of a missing beacon, and 

 the diagram becomes little more than a fancy picture ; 

 but these farms are nearly always larger than the 

 diagrams represent them. 



Provided the angle beacons are standing and are 

 undisputed, the line beacons can always be erected by 

 the farmer, if he only provides himself with sufHcient 

 flags, no matter whether it goes through bush or over 

 hills. He first takes a line of flags in a line that he 

 thinks will strike the other corner, then seeing when he 

 reaches that, how much he is out, takes another line, 

 and so on till he hits the corner-stone, and having 



