2i6 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



killed, but also cooked. Keckless and desperate, I 

 began firing indiscriminately, even on my laying hens; 

 but, gladly though I would have killed the best of them, 

 not one could I hit. At last all the hunted birds were 

 in a state of the wildest excitement; none were iij 

 sight, and an agonized chorus of cackling resounded 

 from all parts of the garden, as if the largest and most 

 venomous of snakes had been seen. Flinging down 

 the revolver in disgust, I meditated the crowning 

 baseness of snatching the poor old sitting hen from the 

 eggs on which she had quietly sat throughout the 

 commotion, when — joyful sight — Mohammed, who had 

 mysteriously vanished, suddenly reappeared, trium- 

 phantly holding up by the neck a plucked fowl. It 

 was but a poor, scraggy, spidery-looking thing, all legs 

 and wings, and with an appearance of having kept 

 Ramadan no less strictly than the Moorish owners from 

 whose hut the poor fellow — anxious to retrieve his 

 fault — had brought it. But it was something off which 

 to dine ; and never was the fattest Christmas turkey 

 more welcome than was its timely appearance. 



The rearing of fowls in South Africa is attended 

 with endless difficulties and discouragements. Frequent 

 epidemics of the fatal disease known as "fowl-sickness" 

 decimate the poultry-yard, which, at the best of times, 

 and with all care, can never be kept sufficiently stocked 

 to supply the needs of the hot weather. Every possible 

 foe of the gallinaceous tribe abounds in the Karroo ; 

 snakes invade the hen-house, and the blackmail which 

 tliey levy on the eggs always amounts to what the 



