Home Life on an Ostrich Farm

by Mrs. Annie Martin

Ostriches in a Hot Wind.

The dust which the hot wind brings with it is, however, a nuisance. There is more than enough dust at the best of times; and the difficulties—already considerable—of keeping a Karroo house neat and clean, are not lessened by the fact that, ten minutes after a careful progress round the room with that most perfect of dusters, a bunch of ostrich-feathers, you can distinctly sign your name with your finger on the little black writing-table, or make a drawing on the piano. But in a good hot wind you have far more than this average, everyday amount of "matter in the wrong place," and you eat and breathe dust.

Sometimes the wind carries the dust high up into the air, in straight, solid-looking columns rising from the ground just as a water-spout rises from the sea. An artist wishing to depict the pillar of the cloud going before the Israelites might well take the form of one of them as a model. Occasionally you see two or three of these columns wandering about the veldt in different directions; and woe betide the imperfectly-built house, or tall wind-mill pump, which has the ill-luck to stand in the path of one of these erratic visitants! We, alas! can speak from experience, our own "Stover" mill having been chosen as a victim and whirled aloft to its destruction! T——, while at Kimberley, in the early days of the diamond-fields, has often seen these dusty whirlwinds going about the camp, passing between the long rows of tents as if hesitating for a time which to attack; then suddenly "going for" one of them, causing instantaneous collapse and confusion.

Every Karroo house has a dam near it, and on a large farm there are generally three or four more of these reservoirs in different parts of the land. The selection of a suitable site for a dam requires some experience. An embankment is thrown up across a valley, where from the rising ground on either side the water is collected. The ground must be "brack," a peculiar kind of soil which, though loose and friable, is not porous. This brack is often used to cover the flat roofs of the houses; but unless it is well sifted and laid on thickly, dependence cannot always be placed on it, as we have several times found to our cost. Rows of willows or mimosas are generally planted along the banks of the dams; and though the moisture which is sucked up by their thirsty roots can ill be afforded, yet, in that most treeless of lands, their bright, fresh green is of immense value; and the poor ugly houses, standing so forlornly on the bare veldt, with but the narrowest and scantiest of gardens—if any—between them and the surrounding desert, seem redeemed from utter dreariness and desolation, and some slight look of home and of refinement is imparted by the dam's semicircle of trees. A good-sized dam is sometimes half a mile broad, and, when just filled after a good thunder-shower, is quite an imposing sheet of water. Occasionally, in very heavy thunder-storms, the glorious supplies pour in too lavishly; the embankment, unable to resist the pressure, gives way; and the disappointed farmer, who has ridden up in the hope of feasting his eyes on watery wealth, beholds his treasure flowing uselessly and aimlessly away across the veldt.

Then, too, even the noblest of dams must dry up in a long drought; and that landowner is wise who does not depend solely on this form of water-supply, but who takes the precaution of sinking one or more good wells. This is expensive work—especially when, as in our case, the hard rock has to be blown away by dynamite; a party of navvies, encamped on the farm for weeks, progressing but slowly and laboriously at the rate of about one foot per day, for which the payment is £5 a foot; but the advantage is seen during the protracted droughts. Then, on farms which only possess dams, the ostriches and other stock are seen lying dead in all directions, a most melancholy sight. Where there is a well, however, the animals can always be kept alive. The water may go down rather low, and the supply doled out to the thirsty creatures may not be very plentiful; but with careful management no stock need be lost during the longest of droughts. But, even with our good well, we found it necessary to be very economical; and the few small eucalypti and other trees which, with great difficulty, we kept alive near the house, have often for weeks together been obliged to content themselves with the soapy water from the baths; while our poor little patch of kitchen-garden has more than once had to be sacrificed and allowed to dry up—the water necessary for its irrigation being more than we could venture to spare.

In some parts of the country the inhabitants are occasionally in terrible straits for want of water; and during one severe drought some passing strangers, who rested a few hours at our house, told us a horrid story of how, at one of the "cantines" (combinations of inn and general store) along their road, they had asked for water to wash their hands, and a scanty supply was brought, with the request that no soap might be used, that same water being ultimately destined to make the tea! It sounds incredible, but I fear it is more likely to be truth than fiction, for the Dutch at the Cape are dirty enough for anything.

The partiality of the thunder-storms is surprising; sometimes one farm will have all its dams filled, while another near it does not get a drop of rain. Often, during a whole season, the thunder-clouds will follow the same course; one unlucky place being repeatedly left out. Swaylands was once for months passed over in this manner; our neighbours on both sides having an abundance of water, while we, like the unhappy little pig of nursery fame, "had none," and found it difficult to restrain envy, hatred, and malice.

Then, too, the clouds have such a deceitful and tantalizing way of collecting in magnificent masses, and coming rolling grandly up as if they really meant business at last—only to disperse quietly in a few hours, disappointing all the hopes they have raised. Again and again you are deluded into believing the long, weary drought is indeed nearing its end; you feel so sure there is a tremendous rain just at hand, that you prepare for action, and, doubting the trustworthiness of those portions of the roof covered with brack, are careful to remove from beneath them everything liable to be spoilt by wet, then, having set your house in order, you wait eagerly to hear the first pattering of the longed-for drops. They do not come, however; it all ends in nothing, and soon every cloud is gone, and the sun blazes out once more in pitiless splendour.

Then at last, after "Wolf!" has been cried so often that you are off your guard, and—obstinately refusing to be taken in by the promising bank of clouds you noticed in the evening—have gone off to bed, expecting your waking eyes to rest only on the usual hard, hot, grey-blue sky—suddenly, in the middle of the night, you are aroused by a deafening noise, and your first confused, half-dreaming thought is that somehow or other you have got underneath the Falls of Niagara—house and all. Then a blue flash wakes you quite up, a terrific roar of thunder shakes the house, and you realize that what for months you have been so longing for has come at last! But there are penalties to be paid for it; and an ominous sound of trickling strikes your ear. Your bedroom unfortunately has a brack roof; and through the defective places in the latter, which every moment become larger and more numerous, streams of water are pouring in, till at last the room seems to be one large shower-bath. You think with horror of the books, writing-case, photographs, lace-trimmed hat, work-basket, boots, etc., all left in various exposed positions about the room, and—most frightful thought of all—of the coats and dresses hanging on the row of pegs in that corner where, to judge by the sound, the most substantial of all the cataracts seems to be descending; and you feel that you must learn at once the extent of your misfortune, and rescue what you can. You try to light a candle; but a well-directed jet of water has been steadily playing straight down into the candlestick, and a vicious sputter is the only response to your efforts. You are still struggling with the candle; trying to wipe it dry, using persuasive language to it, and as far from getting a light as ever; when your breath is suddenly taken away by a stream of ice-cold water pouring over your back, and you find that you have shipped as fine a "sea" as ever dashed through an incautiously-opened port. The flat roof, which has been collecting water till it has become like a tank, has given way under the pressure, and a wide crack has opened just above your head. Of course you are wet through, so is the bed on which you are sitting; and you make a prompt descent from the latter, only to find the floor one vast, shallow bath, in which your slippers are floating.