194 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



It is not much use taking English servants to the 

 Karroo ; the life is too dull for them, they hear of high 

 wages to be had in Port Elizabeth and other towns, and 

 you never keep them long. The man and wife, both 

 excellent servants, who came with us from England, 

 left us soon after we came up-country ; and from that 

 time we had none but coloured servants for house and 

 farm. There was indeed a sudden transformation in 

 our little kitchen; from the quiet, neatly-dressed, white- 

 aproned Mrs. Wells to noisy Hottentot Nancy, in 

 dirtiest of pink cotton, profusely patched with blue 

 and yellow. And the kitchen itself was no less changed 

 than its presiding genius. Now began a time of good 

 hard work for me for which the usual bringing-up of 

 English girls, followed by years of travel and of hotel 

 life, was not the best of training ; and, though I had 

 learned much from Mrs. Wells, I was often sadly at a 

 loss during the first weeks after her departure. No 

 dish, however simple, which I myself was not able to 

 cook, could be cooked by Nancy or any of her suc- 

 cessors ; all were obliged to see it done at least once 

 before they would attempt it. At this time cookery- 

 books were almost my only literature ; and many times a 

 day I sought counsel in a bulky volume wherein recipes 

 and prescriptions, law and natural history, etiquette 

 and the poultry-yard, formed a somewhat startling 

 jumble ; and whose index presented, in immediate 

 juxtaposition, such incongruous subjects as liver, lobster, 

 lumbago marmalade, mayonnaise, measles, meat 

 shrimps, Shropshire pudding, sick-room, sirloin, sitting- 



