1 82 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



in early life with but little in their pockets ; can you 

 blame them, then, if they have fashioned us to represent 

 what they lacked most at home, and came all these 

 miles to seek " ? These men left the old country, too, 

 at a time when people were not expected to live up to 

 their wealth as they are now, and when a plain man 

 and a plain house were often backed up by a long purse. 

 And so these merchants when they retire, or perhaps 

 I should say when they slacken their hold on business 

 through advancing age, do so in a solid, substantial way, 

 building large stone houses, more or less a replica of 

 their place of business, in the suburbs of Port Elizabeth. 

 They grumble of course at the times, as every healthy 

 merchant should, but there is a suspicious twinkle in 

 the eye as they go on their way that sets one thinking. 

 Few of them retire in the way that we understand the 

 word at home, for what occupations would they have if 

 they did so ? South Africa does not seem to be in 

 harmony with retired men, its chief sports and pastimes 

 are for the young, and it may be that the " bit of 

 shooting " which often solaces the later years of the 

 retired business man in the old country, has come with 

 too grim an earnestness at the other end of life to some 

 of the South African business men of long standing in 

 the Colony. No, the only pastime for them would be 

 to go down to the warehouse or office, and watch others 

 do what they themselves had done for so many years 

 before, but then the spice would be out of it, and we 

 all know what the spice is. 



Port Elizabeth has no harbour, unless the broad 

 expanse of Algoa Bay can be called such, but if the 

 town as viewed from the sea looks plain and uninterest- 



