OUR SERVANTS. 187 



ciency ; and the wine at dinner often has to be poured 

 into a motley collection of drinking-vessels, among 

 which breakfast and tea-cups, in a sadly saucerless and 

 handleless condition, largely predominate over glasses. 

 Another time it is the china which is conspicuous by its 

 absence; a large party of strangers who have out- 

 spanned at the dam are asked in to rest for an hour or 

 two on their journey, and the hostess finds herself 

 obliged to hand the afternoon tea to her guests in 

 tumblers. 



The linen fares no better at the hands of Phillis than 

 does the china. The best table-cloths and most delicate 

 articles of clothing are invariably hung to dry, either 

 on ungalvanized wires which streak them with iron- 

 mould, or on the thorniest bushes available, from whose 

 cruel hooks, pointing in all directions, it is impossible 

 to free them without many a rent. You spend much 

 time and trouble over the work of extricating them, 

 remonstrate with Phillis for the hundredth time on her 

 rough treatment of them, and soon after, passing again, 

 find that, all having been spread out on the stony 

 ground near the dam, right in the path of the ostriches 

 coming up from the water, numerous muddy impressions 

 of large, two-toed feet crossing and recrossing the linen 

 necessitate the whole wash being done over again. 

 Although a clothes-line and pegs are provided, they are 

 contemptuously ignored, and the latter especially 

 never used except under the closest supervision ; thus 

 handkerchiefs, socks, and all the lighter articles of 

 wearing-apparel are allowed to go flying away across 



