246 OSTRICH-FARMING .IN SOUTH AFRICA, 



is accepted by the other for fear he should appear 

 churlish. But do not be misled : if your friend is 

 worth having he will not think you churlish , and in his 

 inner mind will be glad that you saved him the expense, 

 and drinking what he knew he would be better without. 

 Remember it is to the passage out on board the steamer 

 that many a miserable, broken-down, pitiable object can 

 trace his fall. 



Another great stumbling-block is often encountered 

 on board the steamer — oramblinfj. This is induWd in 

 by some men on every steamer ; and where it is 

 wealthy men gambling amongst themselves, the whole 

 stakes they play for being a matter of indifference, 

 there is no harm done ; the harm is where a man stakes 

 what he cannot afford to lose with indifference. In all 

 steamers there is generally a daily wager on the distance 

 the vship will run. It often begins innocently enough, 

 and Javenis thinks there is no harm in it, and joins in, 

 and having made a loss, goes on, in the hopes of re- 

 trieving, instead of at once stopping. 



Arrived in the colony, you will find that a farming 

 life is very different to life in England — that it is not 

 all roses, but neither is it all thorns. Its solitariness 

 is its worst feature. Farms are large, and half one's 

 neighbours are often cut off by rivers that are con- 

 stantly impassable, or by high hills that make it a 



