218 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



those of the courier who, though himself not entirely 

 above suspicion, takes good care that his master is 

 robbed by no one else. 



Our secretary, Jacob, whose education had been 

 neglected in youth, refused to make himself useful as 

 a protector of the poultry-yard. His character, never 

 the most amiable, deteriorated rapidly after we brought 

 him up-country, carefully packed for the long railway 

 journey ; the numerous bandages in which he was 

 swathed to secure his long, slender legs from breakage 

 giving him but for his protruding, vulture-like head 

 the appearance of a gigantic ibis-mummy. Our first 

 plan of making him trudge on foot along the road with 

 the Walmer caravan of ostriches was given up, as we 

 felt sure that, with his already-mentioned "cussedness," 

 he would give more trouble to the herds than all the 

 rest of the troop together, and either get a knock on 

 the head to settle him, or else escape, never to be heard 

 of again. At any rate, he would be quite sure not to 

 arrive at his destination. 



Poor Jacob did not nourish in the Karroo, where 

 kittens were scarce, and where no butcher's cart brought 

 daily and ample supplies for his colossal appetite ; and 

 an existence in which fresh meat was so rare a luxury 

 must have been for him a kind of perpetual Lent. 



With much resentment and plainly-expressed disgust 

 at his reverse of fortune, he found himself obliged, late 

 in life, to pick up a living for himself, and would 

 wander dejectedly about the country for miles round, in 

 search of the fat, succulent locusts, the frogs, small 



