244 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



him, lie may be sure that he is not fitted to a colonial 

 farmer's life ; whilst a practical knowledge of the 

 steam-engine, in a country where very little can be 

 done without irrigation, will be of immense value to 

 him all his life. 



If it is intended he should follow mercantile pur- 

 suits, let him get a short training in a merchant's office 

 or a bank, or anywhere where he can get a sharp taste 

 that the world means work and not play. Anywliere 

 at the Cape, outside of the pureW EngHsh towns of 

 Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, King William's Town 

 and the Diamond Fields, a knowledge of the Cape 

 patois Dutch is an indispensable essential in business; 

 and anyone who can speak the high Dutch as spoken in 

 Holland, or even German, will quickly pick up Cape 

 Dutch. 



Much money is often wasted in providing young 

 men with an expensive outfit, which had much better 

 have been laid by as a little capital. Much of the 

 clothing taken is of too warm a nature, and suitable 

 clothing could have been bought nearly as cheap at the 

 Cape, as required. Whilst the money spent on guns, 

 revolvers, &c., would have been much better laid out 

 on a thoroughly good tool-chest ; and the parent, in 

 giving him the guns, has been rather encouraging him 

 in the idea that life is going to be made up of shooting 



