60 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



Strangely enough, when T , some years ago, 



was travelling in Australia, to which country he had 

 brought some ostriches from the Cape, he found that 

 wild tobacco grew nowhere throughout the length and 

 breadth of the land, excepting just in the very region 

 in which the birds had been established. During that 

 trip he also found that the " salt-bush " of Australia, 

 which is there considered the best kind of food for sheep, 

 is almost identical with the brack-bosch of the Cape 

 Colony, the only difference being that it grows higher. 

 We have also seen the same bush growing in Algeria, 

 and near Marseilles. 



On the lower slopes of some of our mountains grow 

 tall euphorbias, shooting up straight and stiff as if 

 made of metal, and branching out in the exact form 

 of the Jewish candlestick sculptured on the arch of 

 Titus in Rome. Some of these euphorbias attain the 

 height of forty feet quite important dimensions in 

 that comparatively treeless land. They impart an air of 

 melancholy and desolation to the landscape ; and look 

 particularly weird and uncanny when, on a homeward 

 ride, you pass through a grove of them at dusk. 



One more queer plant in conclusion of these slight 

 and very unscientific reminiscences of our flora, which 

 I trust may never meet the eye of any botanist. The 

 kerzbosch, or candle-bush, a stunted, thorny plant, if 

 lighted at one end when in the green state, will burn 

 steadily just like a wax candle, and is used as a torch 

 for burning off the thorns of prickly pear, etc. 



