74 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



refreshing contrast when you chance to meet an 

 American who is contemptuously jocular on the subject 

 of the ugly scenery, eccentric plants, queer beasts, and 

 general all-pervading look of incompleteness, and who 

 guesses " South Africa was finished oiF in a hurry late 

 on Saturday night, with a few diamonds thrown in to 

 compensate." 



Even the climate comes in for its share of abuse : its 

 long droughts, its hot winds, its incessant sunshine — as 

 if you could have too much of that ! — and its general 

 dissimilarity to the climate of England — for which 

 surely it ought to be commended, — all are added to the 

 long list of complaints against a land which seems, 

 like the much-abused donkey, to have no friends. And 

 yet that climate, with all its drawbacks and discomforts, 

 is the healthiest in the world ; and most especially is 

 the Karroo district the place of all others for invalids 

 suffering from chest complaints. No one need die of 

 consumption, however advanced a stage his disease may 

 have attained, if he can but reach the Cape Colony and 

 proceed at once inland. He must not stay near the 

 coast ; it would be as well — indeed better — for him to 

 have remained in England to die among friends ; for in 

 the moist neighbourhood of the sea the disease cannot 

 be cured, its progress is simply retarded for a whUe. 

 But a railway journey of only a few hours lands the 

 patient in the very heart of the Karroo ; and once in 

 its dry atmosphere, he may hope — ^nay expect — ^not 

 a mere prolongation for a few months of such a life as 

 one too often sees sadly ebbing away in Mediterranean 



