“Course he can’t, sir, nor you nayther. ’Tain’t to be done. I knowed it were a ’maginary line when you said we war crossing it. But just you look here, sir: ’bout our garden and farm, over which I hope the master weant be disappointed, but I know he will, for I asks you young gents this—serusly, mind, as gents as has had your good eddication and growed up scollards—How can a man make a garden in a country where everything is upside down?”
“But it isn’t upside down, Sam; it’s only different,” said Norman.
“That’s what I say, sir. Here we are in the middle o’ December, when, if the weather’s open, you may put in your first crop o’ broad Windsor beans, and you’ve got your ground all ridged to sweeten in the frost. And now, look at this. Why, it’s reg’lar harvest time and nothing else. I don’t wonder at the natives being black.”
“Look, look!” cried Tim suddenly, as he pointed away to where, on an open plain on the right, some birds were running rapidly.
“I see them! what are they?” cried Rifle, excitedly.
“Somebody’s chickens,” said Sam, contemptuously.
The boys looked at him and laughed.
“Sam German has got to grow used to the place,” said Norman. And then, as his father cantered up, he pointed off. “Do you see those, father?”
“What, those birds?” said the captain, eagerly. “Comebacks, sir. Guinea fowls. A bit wild,” said Sam, quietly.
“Guinea fowls?” replied the captain, sheltering his eyes. “No; birds twenty times as large, you might say. Why, boys, those must be emus.”