LIFE ON A MOUNTAIN FARM. 79 



is busy, superintending the washing, cooking, and 

 other matters of domestic economy, as well as the 

 education of her little fair-haired girl, our pride and 

 delight. Kaitje, our cook, a yellow lady of mixed 

 race (Hottentot, Kaffir, and Bushman intermingled), 

 attends to the baking of our " cookies," cakes of 

 unleavened meal, which usurp the place of bread, 

 and which are baked — and capitally baked too — in 

 a hole in the ground, heated in the native fashion. 

 If we happen to be near the homestead, we take a 

 light lunch in the middle of the day, and at seven 

 o'clock we all meet for dinner ; after which we smoke 

 and chat, or read, till bedtime — usually about ten 

 o'clock. If we do not make money fast nowadays, 

 we live in a rude plenty : meat in abundance is 

 ours ; dried fruits — quinces and peaches, excellent 

 when stewed — bought from the Boers who pass us 

 occasionally with waggon-loads of produce ; oranges 

 and grapes in season, from the irrigated farms of 

 Boers out beyond the poort, whence we emerge 

 from our mountain home ; and porridge of pounded 

 mealies and milk occasionally. Goats' milk we have 

 in plenty, but no butter or cream ; for cows and 

 oxen do not flourish upon our zuur veldt. Game 

 abounds with us. Our mountains support several 

 kinds of antelope — the klipspringer, rhebok of two 

 sorts, vaal and rooi (grey and red), duykerbok, and 

 an occasional koodoo ; the latter one of the noblest 

 of the South African fauna, carrying magnificent 

 spiral horns, and weighing from 400 lbs. to 500 lbs. 

 Francolins and bustards and other feathered game 

 are also plentiful. A day's shooting forms a 

 pleasant break in the quiet round of our existence. 

 The chase of the beautiful antelopes that yet remain 



