58 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



long droughts, being burnt and cut up in the same 

 manner as the prickly pear. When the plant is in 

 flower, each branch of the candlestick seems tipped 

 with a bright yellow flame. 



Another of our many eccentric-looking plants, the 

 finger-poll, is also used in very dry seasons to feed 

 cattle ; the men who go about the country cutting it up 

 being followed by the animals, which are very fond of 

 it, but which, owing to its excessive toughness, are un- 

 able to bite it off. It grows close to the ground ; its 

 perfect circle of thick, short fingers, rather like gigantic 

 asparagus, radiating stiffly from the centre. How the 

 cattle manage to eat it without serious consequences 

 has always been a matter of wonder to me, for the 

 whole plant is filled with a thick, white, milky juice, 

 which when dry becomes like the strongest india- 

 rubber. We often used this juice for mending china, 

 articles of jewellery, and many things which defied 

 coaguline, to which, indeed, we found it superior. 



One of our plants always reminded me of those 

 French sweets, threaded on a stiff straw, which often 

 form a part of the contents of a bon-bon box. The 

 thick, succulent leaves, shaded green and red, with a 

 frosted, sparkling surface which increases the resem- 

 blance to the candied sweets, and all as exactly alike 

 in shape and size as if made in one mould, are threaded 

 like beads at equal distances along the stem, which 

 passes through a little round hole in the very centre of 

 each. They can all be taken off and threaded on again 

 just as they were before. 



