52 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



flowers; and one, the soft stem of which, if cut into 

 thin slices, looks exactly like very red salt tongue. 



Those unpleasant old acquaintances of childish days, 

 the bitter aloes, are at home in the Karroo in great 

 numbers ; and most brilliantly do they light up the 

 somewhat gloomy-looking sides of the mountains in 

 early spring with the great spikes of their shaded scar- 

 let and orange-coloured flowers, looking like gigantic 

 "red-hot poker plants." This African aloe has none 

 of the slender grace of its American relative, and it is 

 only when flowering that it has any claim to beauty ; 

 at all other times it is simply a most untidy-looking 

 plant, the thick, clumsy stem for about five or six feet 

 below the crown of leaves being covered with the 

 ragged, decaying remains of former vegetation, sug- 

 gestive of numberless scorpions and centipedes. 



Thorny plants abound, especially on the mountains, 

 where indeed almost every bush which is not soft and 

 succulent is armed with strong, sharp, often cruelly 

 hooked spikes. The wacht-een-beetje (wait-a-bit) does 

 not grow in our neighbourhood, but we have several 

 plants which seem to me no less deserving of the name ; 

 and often, when held a prisoner on some ingenious 

 arrangement of hooks and spikes viciously pointing in 

 every possible direction, each effort to free myself in- 

 volving me more deeply, and inflicting fresh damage 



on clothes and flesh, I should, but for T 's assurance 



to the contrary, have quite believed I had encountered 

 it. The constant repairing of frightful " trap-doors " 

 and yawning rents of all shapes and sizes in T 's 



