78 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



saults down steep banks, and go through other startling 

 acrobatic feats, all with perfect impunity to the occu- 

 pants. No legs, arms, or ribs, to say nothing of necks, 

 are ever broken. 



And when the young colonist makes his first appear- 

 ance on this world's stage, his advent is not made the 

 occasion for any undue display of fuss or anxiety. It 

 is not thought worth while to summon the doctor from 

 his distant abode ; some old Dutch or Hottentot 

 woman, who has been a grandmother so often that 

 her experience is large, is called in, and all goes well. 

 The young colonist himself is invariably a flourishing 

 specimen of humanity ; the childish ailments to which 

 so many of his less robust European contemporaries 

 succumb, cause him no trouble, and, if indeed they 

 attack him at all, he weathers them triumphantly. 

 He thrives in the pure fresh air, revels in the healthy 

 out-door life, eats, of course, to an enormous and 

 alarming extent, and grows up a young giant. He 

 enjoys the same immunity from accident as his elders, 

 passing safely through even more " hair - breadth 

 'scapes " than they ; his sturdy, independent spirit 

 makes him equal to any emergency, and enables him, 

 in whatever circumstances of difficulty or danger he 

 may be placed, to take very good care of himself. 



On the farm next to ours a tiny boy of three, while 

 playing with the windlass of a deep well, and hanging 

 on to the rope, suddenly let himself down with a run 

 into the water. He was not much disconcerted, how- 

 ever ; but, with wonderful presence of mind for such 



