230 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



really wanted for good bread is just simply the entire 

 contents of the grain, as nature, who after all knows 

 best, has given it to us. 



Better than sour dough, yeast, and all the baking- 

 powders in the world is a preparation made by the 

 Kaffir women from a curious and rather rare little 

 plant which grows in the Karroo. This plant is almost 

 all root, the small portion which peeps above the 

 ground consisting only of a few tight clusters of small, 

 shiny knobs, of a dull leaden colour. There is nothing 

 like it for making bread rise ; but it is most difficult 

 to get any of it, as the Kaffir women, besides being 

 too lazy to relish the work of preparing it, which is a 

 long and tedious business, make a mystery and a secret 

 of it: no servant will own to understanding it, and 

 somehow one never gets to see the whole process, and 

 is only shown certain stages of it, one of which con- 

 sists in the hanging up of the substance for a while in 

 a bag exposed to the air, during which time it increases 

 enormously in bulk, in a manner which seems almost 

 miraculous. 



Butter being so rare a luxury in the Karroo, a 

 number of different substances have to be pressed into 

 the service during long droughts to supply its place, 

 such as lard, dripping, etc., and, for the table, the fat 

 from the huge tails of sheep somewhat resembling 

 those of Syria, though not, like the latter, kindly pro- 

 vided with little carts on which to drag the cumbersome 

 weight. English jams, of course, like all other im- 

 ported provisions, are ruinously expensive ; and it is a 



