HOW WE FARED. 211 



It is the work of the mistress of the house to give 

 out the rations ; and her movements, while manipu- 

 lating the scales, are watched in a very criticizing and 

 suspicious manner by the black recipients, who always 

 seem terribly afraid that she will give them short 

 weight. In reality she is anxiously and almost ner- 

 vously careful that every pound she gives them shall 

 be a good one ; and if she errs at all it is on their side, 

 never on her own. In the matter of tobacco her heart 

 is especially soft, and the spans she measures off those 

 great coils of dark-brown rope which surely must be 

 akin to " pigtail tobacco " are far longer than can be 

 stretched by her hand, or indeed by any hand but that 

 of a giant. But in this, as in every other item of the 

 rations, she is most unjustly and ungratefully sus- 

 pected of a systematic course of cheating. Sometimes 

 " April " or " August," struck with a sudden bright 

 idea, comes up to the table, and, with many monkey-like 

 gestures, makes a close investigation of the scales and 

 weights ; peeping beneath them and looking at them 

 from all sides, to see by what artful device they have 

 been made the means of tricking him. He fails to 

 discover anything ; but retires shaking his woolly head 

 dubiously, and as far off as ever from believing in the 

 honesty of his employers. 



Sometimes a little barter is carried on, in quite a 

 primitive, old-fashioned way, with Dutchmen travel- 

 ling by in large waggons drawn by sixteen or eighteen 

 oxen, and often bringing with them very good onions, 

 oranges, naatjes or mandarines, nuts, dried peaches 



