HOME LIFE
ON AN OSTRICH FARM.
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 alreadyappeared, in an abridged form, in the Saturday Review. Part ofthe chapter on "The Climate of the Karroo" has also appeared in theSt. James's Gazette.
By the kind permission of the editors of both papers I am now enabledto reprint these pages.
A. M.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| PORT ELIZABETH AND WALMER. | |
| Early ambitions realized — Voyage to SouthAfrica — Cape Town andWynberg — Profusion offlowers — Port Elizabeth — Christmasdecorations — Publiclibrary — Malays — Walmer — Hottentot huts — Our littlehouse — Prettygardens — Honey-suckers — Flowers ofWalmerCommon — 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 — Oursecretary bird — Ungainly appearance ofJacob — His queer ways — Tragic fateof a kitten — A persecutedfowl — Our Dikkops — A babybuffalo — Wounded buffalo more dangerous thanlion — A lucky stumble — Hunterattacked by "rogue" buffalo — A midnightride — Followed by alion — Toto — A pugnaciousgoose — South African climate dangerous to importeddogs — Toto and the crows — Animalsoffered by Moors in exchange for Toto | 25 |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| PLANTS OF THE KARROO. | |
| We move up-country — Situation offarm — Strange vegetation of Karroodistrict — Karrooplant — Fei-bosch — Brack-bosch& — Ourflowers — Spekboom — Bitteraloes — Thornyplants — Wacht-een-Beetje — Ostriches killed by pricklypear — Finger-poll — Wild tobaccofatal to ostriches — Carelessness ofcolonists — Euphorbias — Candle-bush | 46 |
| CHAPTER IV. | |