OUR SERVANTS. 197 



inveterate old thief, she was the exact opposite of a 

 total abstainer ; and the frequent " drop too much " in 

 which she indulged was always the occasion for a 

 display of choice language and a reckless destruction 

 of crockery. 



But these are enough ; suffice it to say that the same 

 types of character ran through a long line of successors, 

 and that, taking them all round, I had about the same 

 amount of trouble with all of them. 



T 's men required almost as much looking after 



as my women ; and, in order to get his herds off to work 

 in good time, it was generally necessary for him to go 

 down himself at sunrise to their little huts, not far 

 from the house, and wake them up. As a rule they 

 were not fond of work ; and many were the excuses 

 they would invent in order to avoid it as much as 

 possible. Being " sick " was of course a favourite plea ; 

 and, whatever the nature of the complaint from which 

 they professed themselves to be suffering, they were 

 always convinced that a suppje (drink) of prickly pear 

 brandy or of " Cape smoke " * would be just the thing 

 to set them right. At one time quite an epidemic of sham 

 sickness broke out ; but, as we soon saw throusrh the 

 trick, and knew that our would-be patients were per- 

 fectly well, we did not indulge them with their favourite 

 remedy, but determined to make an example. We 

 accordingly treated a very palpable case of shamming 

 with a medicine of our own concoction. We mixed a 

 good saucerful of Gregory's powder and castor oil into 



* Boer brandy. 



