Chapter IV. 

 LIFE ON A MOUNTAIN FARM.* 



LIFE with the pastoral farmer in Cape Colony 

 goes very' quietly, very regularly — some people 

 might even say something monotonously. 

 But, to the enterprising farmer in South Africa, 

 there is always plenty to employ the time ; fencing, 

 gardening, tree-planting, dam-making, well-sinking, 

 these and a hundred other things beyond the 

 ordinary pastoral routine, are for ever clamouring 

 to be attended to. And to the credit of the too 

 scanty element of British folk in the Colony, and in 

 great contrast to the more slothful, and, if you will, 

 slow-moving Dutch farmer, these improvements are 

 ever and increasingly going forward, transforming 

 barren spots in rugged mountain country or howling 

 desert into cosy habitations and smiling farmsteads. 

 Shut up in our lonely farm of 18,000 morgen (rather 

 more than 36,000 acres) amongst the mountains, life 

 runs quietly with us, it must be admitted. We are 

 goat-farmers, and feed our flocks upon the zuur veldt 

 (sour pasture) with which our rugged hillsides are 

 clothed. I say " we " for the sake of convenience, 

 for I, personally, and at present my travelling 

 friends, are visitors. Some of our goats are of the 

 ordinary kind, others are the beautiful Angoras — 

 shapely creatures, with long white silky coats, from 

 which is clipped the well-known mohair. The 

 Angoras, as a rule, however, thrive better on the 



* This chapter was originally written in the present tense, and I have 

 thought it as well to print it in its early form. 



