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HOME LIFE

ON AN OSTRICH FARM.

[Illustration: TROOP OF OSTRICHES, AND CART WITH PRICKLY-PEAR
LEAVES FOR FOOD.]




HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM


By

ANNIE MARTIN


_WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS_


NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1891

_Authorized Edition._




To T. M.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR SOUTH AFRICAN LIFE.




PREFACE.


Some portions of the chapters on "Ostriches" and "Bobby" have already
appeared, in an abridged form, in the Saturday _Review_. Part of the
chapter on "The Climate of the Karroo" has also appeared in the _St.
James's Gazette_.

By the kind permission of the editors of both papers I am now enabled
to reprint these pages.

    A. M.




CONTENTS.


                                                                 PAGE

CHAPTER I.

PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER.

Early ambitions realized--Voyage to South Africa--Cape Town
and Wynberg--Profusion of flowers--Port Elizabeth--Christmas
decorations--Public library--Malays--Walmer--Hottentot huts--Our
little house--Pretty gardens--Honey-suckers--Flowers of Walmer
Common--Wax-creeper--Ixias--Scarlet heath--Natal lilies--
"Upholstery flower"--Ticks--Commence ostrich-farming--Counting
the birds--A ride after an ostrich                                  9


CHAPTER II.

SOME OF OUR PETS.

Friendliness of South African birds and beasts--Our secretary
bird--Ungainly appearance of Jacob--His queer ways--Tragic fate of
a kitten--A persecuted fowl--Our Dikkops--A baby buffalo--Wounded
buffalo more dangerous than lion--A lucky stumble--Hunter attacked
by "rogue" buffalo--A midnight ride--Followed by a lion--Toto--A
pugnacious goose--South African climate dangerous to imported
dogs--Toto and the crows--Animals offered by Moors in exchange
for Toto                                                           25


CHAPTER III.

PLANTS OF THE KARROO.

We move up-country--Situation of farm--Strange vegetation of
Karroo district--Karroo plant--Fei-bosch--Brack-bosch--Our
flowers--Spekboom--Bitter aloes--Thorny plants--Wacht-een-Beetje
--Ostriches killed by prickly pear--Finger-poll--Wild tobacco
fatal to ostriches--Carelessness of colonists--Euphorbias--
Candle-bush                                                        46


CHAPTER IV.

OUR LITTLE HOME.

Building operations--A plucking--Ugliness of Cape houses--Our
rooms--Fountain in sitting-room a failure--Drowned pets--
Decoration of rooms--Colonist must be Jack-of-all-trades--Cape
waggons--Shooting expeditions--Strange tale told by Boer           61


CHAPTER V.

CLIMATE OF THE KARROO.

Cape Colony much abused--Healthy climate--Wonderful cures of
consumption--Karroo a good place for sanatorium--Rarity of illness
and accidents--The young colonist--An independent infant--Long
droughts--Hot winds--Dust storms--Dams--Advantage of possessing
good wells--Partiality of thunderstorms--Delights of a brack
roof--Washed out of bed--After the rain--Our horses--Effects of
rain indoors--_Opslaag_--The Cape winter--What to wear on Karroo
farms                                                              72


CHAPTER VI.

OSTRICHES.

An unwilling ride--First sight of an ostrich farm--Ridiculous
mistakes about ostriches--Decreased value of birds and feathers
--Chicks--Plumage of ostriches--A frightened ostrich--The
plucking-box--Sorting feathers--Voice of the ostrich--Savage
birds--"Not afraid of a dicky-bird!"--Quelling an ostrich--Birds
killed by men in self-defence--Nests--An undutiful hen--Darby and
Joan--A disconsolate widower--A hen-pecked husband--Too much
zeal--Jackie--Cooling the eggs--The white-necked crow--Poisoning
jackals--Ostrich eggs in the kitchen--A quaint old writer on
ostriches--A suppliant bird--Nest destroyed by enraged ostrich--An
old bachelor                                                       98


CHAPTER VII.

OSTRICHES (_continued_).

Vagaries of an incubator--Hatching the chicks--A bad egg--Human
foster mothers--Chicks difficult to rear--"Yellow-liver"--Cruel
boys--Chicks herded by hen ostrich--Visit to Boer's house--A
carriage full of ostriches--"The melancholy Jaques"--Ostriches at
sea--A stampede--Runaway birds--Branding--Stupidity of ostriches
--Accidents--Waltzing and fighting--Ostrich soup--An expensive
quince--A feathered Tantalus--Strange things swallowed by ostriches
--A court-martial--The ostrich, or the diamond?--A visit to the
Zoo                                                               130


CHAPTER VIII.

MEERKATS.

Meerkats plentiful in the Karroo--Their appearance--Intelligence--
Fearlessness--Friendship for dogs--A meerkat in England--Meerkat an
inveterate thief--An owl in Tangier--Taming full-grown meerkat--
Tiny twins--A sad accident--Different characters of meerkats--The
turkey-herd--Bob and the meerkat--"The Mouse"                     157


CHAPTER IX.

BOBBY.

Bobby's babyhood--Insatiable appetite--Variety of noises made by
Bobby--His tameness--Narrow