CHAPTER X. 



OUR SERVANTS. 



A retrospective vision Phillis in her domain Her destructiveness 

 Her ideas on personal adornment The woes of a mistress Eye- 

 service Abrupt departure of Phillis Left in the lurch Nancy 

 and her successors Cure of sham sickness The thief s dose Our 

 ostrich-herd A bride purchased with cows English and natives 

 at the Cape Character of Zulus and Kaffirs. 



" Man's work is from sun to sun, 

 But woman's work is never done. " 



IT is always amusing, for those who have tried house- 

 keeping in South Africa, to hear people in England 

 talk of their " bad " servants. Ladies who, after the 

 short quarter of an hour devoted to interviewing the 

 cook and giving the day's orders, need trouble them- 

 selves no more throughout the twenty-four hours as to 

 the carrying out of those orders, but are free to pursue 

 their own occupations, uninterrupted by a constant 

 need of superintending those of their domestics, sit 

 in their beautifully-kept drawing-rooms or at their 

 well-appointed dining-tables, whose spotless linen and 

 bright glass and silver are so delicious a novelty to eyes 

 long accustomed to the Karroo's rough-and-ready back- 

 woods style, and, much to your surprise, complain 



182 



