to steal his food ; and he would not stand it. His way 

 of dealing with them was not good for their health : 

 before I could teach him not to kill, and before the 

 fowls would learn not to steal, he had finished half a 

 dozen of them one after another with just one bite 

 and a shake. He would growl very low as they came 

 up and, without lifting his head from the plate, watch 

 them with his little eyes turning from soft brown to 

 shiny black ; and when they came too near and tried 

 to snatch just one mouthful well, one jump, one shake, 

 and it was all over. 



In the end he learned to tumble them over and 

 scare their wits out without hurting them ; and they 

 learned to give him a very wide berth. 



I used always to keep some fowls with the waggons, 

 partly to have fresh meat if we ran out of game, but 

 mainly to have fresh eggs, which were a very great 

 treat ; and as a rule it was only when a hen turned 

 obstinate and would not lay that we ate her. I used 

 to have one old rooster, whose name was Pezulu, and 

 six or eight hens. The hens changed from time to 

 time as we ate them but Pezulu remained. 



The fowl-coop was carried on top of everything 

 else, and it was always left open so that the fowls 

 could go in and out as they liked. In the very begin- 

 ning of all, of course, the fowls were shut in and fed 

 in the coop for a day or two to teach them where 

 their home was ; but it is surprising how quickly 

 a fowl will learn and how it observes things. For 

 instance, the moving of the coop from one waggon 

 to another is not a thing one would expect the fowls 



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