Home Life on an Ostrich Farm

by Mrs. Annie Martin

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.

OF all portions of the globe, surely none has ever been so much grumbled at, abused, and despised, both justly and unjustly, as the poor Cape Colony. Hardly any one who has lived under its cloudless skies has a kind word to say for it; indeed, it is quite the usual thing to speak of one's residence in it as of an enforced and miserable exile—a kind of penal servitude—though, strangely enough, most of those who go so rejoicingly home to England, like boys released from school, manage sooner or later to find their way out again; as though impelled by a touch of some such magic as that which is supposed to draw back to the Eternal City those who have once drunk at the Trevi fountain.

One of the legion of grumblers tells you the Cape Colony is the worst-governed country in the world, which indeed—with the exception, perhaps, of Turkey and Morocco—it undoubtedly is; the grievance of another is that the country in general, and ostrich-farming in particular, is played out, that no more fortunes are to be made, and that life on the farms offers nothing to compensate sufficiently for the numerous discomforts and privations which have to be endured; the heavy import duties and consequent ruinous prices of all the necessaries of life, with the exception of meat, depriving the colonist of even that small consolation of knowing that, though uncomfortable, he is at least economizing. Sybarites accustomed to home comforts make constant comparisons between English and colonial houses, greatly to the disparagement of the latter; epicures complain bitterly of the wearying sameness of the food, resenting most deeply the perpetual recurrence on the table, morning, noon, and night, of the ubiquitous though delicious Angora goat; while ladies are eloquent on the never-ending topics of the bad servants—certainly the worst that can be found anywhere—the difficulties of housekeeping, the rough roads, the inconvenient distance from everywhere, the trouble and delay of getting provisions, etc., sent up to the farms, and, saddest of all, the want of society and the intolerable dulness. In fact, the general opinion seems to be that of Mrs. Jellyby's daughter, that "Africa is a Beast!" You hear so much grumbling, see such bored, dissatisfied faces, and are treated to so many gloomy and desponding views of colonial life, that it is quite a refreshing contrast when you chance to meet an American who is contemptuously jocular on the subject of the ugly scenery, eccentric plants, queer beasts, and general all-pervading look of incompleteness, and who guesses "South Africa was finished off in a hurry late on Saturday night, with a few diamonds thrown in to compensate."

Even the climate comes in for its share of abuse: its long droughts, its hot winds, its incessant sunshine—as if you could have too much of that!—and its general dissimilarity to the climate of England—for which surely it ought to be commended,—all are added to the long list of complaints against a land which seems, like the much-abused donkey, to have no friends. And yet that climate, with all its drawbacks and discomforts, is the healthiest in the world; and most especially is the Karroo district the place of all others for invalids suffering from chest complaints. No one need die of consumption, however advanced a stage his disease may have attained, if he can but reach the Cape Colony and proceed at once inland. He must not stay near the coast; it would be as well—indeed better—for him to have remained in England to die among friends; for in the moist neighbourhood of the sea the disease cannot be cured, its progress is simply retarded for a while. But a railway journey of only a few hours lands the patient in the very heart of the Karroo; and once in its dry atmosphere, he may hope—nay expect—not a mere prolongation for a few months of such a life as one too often sees sadly ebbing away in Mediterranean winter resorts, but a return to health and strength. Among our Cape acquaintances are some whom T—— knew when, years ago, they landed in the Colony—given up by their doctors at home, and so near the last stage of consumption that on arriving they could not walk on shore, but had to be carried from the vessel—and who are now as strong and well as any of their neighbours. Indeed, on my introduction to more than one of these stout and hearty colonists, I have found it quite impossible to realize that they, at any time, could have been consumptive invalids! Unfortunately, too many presume on the completeness of their cure; and, instead of resigning themselves to settling and finding permanent occupation in the colony, as all whose lungs have once been seriously affected ought to do, return to England; and, having grown reckless with long residence in a land where "nothing gives you cold," soon fall victims to their treacherous native climate; the first exposure to its damp chilliness generally bringing back in full force the foe from whose attacks they would always have been safe, had they not left the dry Karroo's protection.

It is a pity European doctors do not know more about this wonderful climate for consumptive patients; and also that so few inducements are held out for the latter to settle in the country. What a splendid plan it would be, and how many valuable lives might be saved, if some clever medical man—himself perhaps just enough of an invalid to prefer living out of England—were to take a large farm in the Karroo, and "run" it as a sanatorium. This could be done without the expenditure of any very large amount of capital, as land can be rented from Government at the rate of a very moderate sum per annum. It would be necessary to choose a farm possessing a good fountain; thus a constant supply of vegetables could be kept up, and herds of cattle, flocks of sheep and Angoras, and plenty of fowls, turkeys, etc., be maintained to provide the establishment with meat, milk, butter, and eggs—rendering it to a great extent self-supporting. The young men could occupy themselves in superintending the farming operations, and thus would not only have plenty to do, but would at the same time be gaining health. A good troop of horses would of course be kept, so that patients might have as much riding and driving as they wished; there would be some shooting, as there are partridges, several birds of the bustard tribe, and a few antelopes; and with a house whose interior presented the comforts of a refined home, with prettily-furnished rooms, and with a good supply of books, papers, and magazines, life in that bright, sunny land might be made pleasant enough. The healthiness of the country is greatly owing, not only to its dryness, but also to the fact of its being a table-land, one thousand feet above the sea; thus the nights are always cool, and one is generally glad of two blankets, even in summer.

Nor is consumption the only enemy who has to retreat powerless before the Karroo's health-giving atmosphere; many other illnesses seem equally unable to obtain a footing in that perfect climate. T——, for instance, who from childhood had been subject to severe attacks of asthma, was completely cured by his residence on the ostrich farms; and a troublesome remittent fever, caught in the West Indies, from which I had suffered, off and on, during seven years, left me entirely from the time we went to live at Swaylands. There seems, indeed, to be much of truth in the boastful assertion one so often hears, "No one is ever ill here!" and the wonder is, not that doctors are so sparsely distributed throughout the Karroo, but that they ever think it worth while to settle there at all. People live quite contentedly two or more days' drive from the nearest doctor—medical help from Port Elizabeth being equally, if not more, inaccessible, owing to the fact that the train does not run every day—and from year's end to year's end they not only are never ill, but seem also quite exempt from the usual accidents which in other parts of the world are apt to befall humanity. They go out shooting, and their horses buck them off—a trifling, everyday event which is taken as a matter of course; they gallop recklessly across the veldt, over ground so full of treacherous holes that a horse is liable at any moment to get a sudden and ugly fall—indeed, he often does, but the colonist always rises unhurt; they drive home late at night along the roughest of roads, at a furious pace—often after imbibing far more than is usually conducive to safety—and their Cape carts or American spiders very naturally tumble into sluits, run into wire fences, perform somersaults down steep banks, and go through other startling acrobatic feats, all with perfect impunity to the occupants. No legs, arms, or ribs, to say nothing of necks, are ever broken.

And when the young colonist makes his first appearance on this world's stage, his advent is not made the occasion for any undue display of fuss or anxiety. It is not thought worth while to summon the doctor from his distant abode; some old Dutch or Hottentot woman, who has been a grandmother so often that her experience is large, is called in, and all goes well. The young colonist himself is invariably a flourishing specimen of humanity; the childish ailments to which so many of his less robust European contemporaries succumb, cause him no trouble, and, if indeed they attack him at all, he weathers them triumphantly. He thrives in the pure fresh air, revels in the healthy out-door life, eats, of course, to an enormous and alarming extent, and grows up a young giant. He enjoys the same immunity from accident as his elders, passing safely through even more "hair-breadth 'scapes" than they; his sturdy, independent spirit makes him equal to any emergency, and enables him, in whatever circumstances of difficulty or danger he may be placed, to take very good care of himself.

On the farm next to ours a tiny boy of three, while playing with the windlass of a deep well, and hanging on to the rope, suddenly let himself down with a run into the water. He was not much disconcerted, however; but, with wonderful presence of mind for such a baby, managed to get his feet firmly on the bucket, and finding the length of the rope just, though only just, allowed his mouth to come above the surface, remained immovable, roaring steadily and lustily till assistance came.

The long droughts are certainly very trying; indeed they could not possibly be endured by any country less wonderfully fertile than South Africa, where it is calculated that three good days' rain in the year, could we but have this regularly, would be sufficient to meet all the needs of the land. But often, for more than a year, there will be no rain worth mentioning; the dams, or large artificial reservoirs, of which each farm usually possesses several, gradually become dry; and the veldt daily loses more of its verdure, till at last all is one dull, ugly brown, and the whole plain lies parched and burnt up under a sky from which every atom of moisture seems to have departed—a hard, grey, metallic sky, as different as possible from the rich, deep-blue canopy which, far away to the north, spreads over lovely Algeria. The stock, with the pathetic tameness of thirst, come from all parts of the farm to congregate close round the house; the inquiring ostriches tapping with their bills on the windows as they look in at you, and the cattle lowing in piteous appeal for water; and you realize very vividly the force of such Scriptural expressions as, "the heaven was shut up," or, "a dry and thirsty land where no water is."

Then the hot winds sweep across the country, making everybody tired, languid, head-achy and cross. Indeed, excessive irritability seems to be the general result of hot winds in all parts of the world; in Egypt, for instance, there is never so much crime among the natives as while the khamseen is blowing; every outbreak of the Arabs in Algiers invariably occurs during an extra bad sirocco; and in a Spanish family I knew in Havana there obtained a very sensible rule, unanimously adopted to avoid collisions of temper, i.e., on the days of an especially venomous hot wind peculiar to Cuba an unbroken silence was maintained; no member of the family, on any pretence whatever, speaking to another. Even our pets were sulky on a hot wind day; and as for the ostriches, they were deplorable objects indeed as they stood gasping for breath, with pendent wings, open bills, and inflated throats, the pictures of imbecile dejection. In fact, everything human, four-footed, and feathered, in the whole Karroo, was as thoroughly unhappy as it could well be; with the sole exception of myself. My spirits, instead of falling below zero, would always rise in proportion as the surrounding air became more like the breath of a furnace; this was not owing, as may perhaps be supposed, to the possession of so rare a sweetness of temper as to render me happy under even the most adverse circumstances, but simply to a real and intense enjoyment of that weather which everyone else hated. While T——, closing every door and window as tightly as possible (which, however, is not saying much), would retire to his bath, there to spend a couple of hours in company with books, papers, and numberless lemon-squashes, if lemons happened to be attainable; I would carry my chair outside, and, as I darned socks or repaired the latest trap-doors torn in our garments by the thorns, would revel in my bath of hot, dry air.