88 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



" voice of many waters ! " It means everything to the 

 farmer ; the long drought over at last, the dams full, 

 the parched country revived, the poor thin cattle no 

 longer in danger of starvation ; healthier ostriches, a 

 better quality of feathers, a near prospect of nests, and 

 in fact the removal of a load of cares and anxieties. 



How early we are all astir on the morning after a 

 biff rain ! and with what eacrer excitement we look 

 out, in the first gleam of daylight, for that most wel- 

 come sight, the newly-filled dam ! A wonderful trans- 

 formation has indeed been worked in the appearance 

 of tilings since last night. That unsightly dry bed of 

 light-coloured soil, baked by the hot sun to the hard- 

 ness of pottery, and broken up bj'- a thousand inter- 

 secting deep cracks and fissures, which has so long 

 been the ugliest feature among all our unpicturesque 

 surroundings, offends the eye no more ; and in its 

 place there now lies in the early morning light a 

 beautiful broad sheet of water, into which the yellow 

 sluit, a miniature Niagara Rapids, is still lavishly 

 pouring its wealth — not for many hours indeed will 

 the impetuous course of this and numerous other sluits, 

 large and small, begin gradually to subside. Every- 

 where the water is standing in immense pools and 

 ponds ; how to feed one unlucky pair of breeding-birds 

 — my special charges — in a low-lying camp on the 

 other side of the sluit is a problem which for the 

 present I do not attempt to solve ; indeed, to walk a 

 yard from the door, even in the thickest of boots and 

 shabbiest of garments, requires some courage, for it is 



