I think our friends at home would have been rather amused if they could have seen us one day, driving home from Mount Stewart with twelve ostriches in our extremely small American spider. On our way to a farm where T—— had business we happened to pass a Dutchman's house, round the door of which we noticed a lively little brood of chicks running about. T—— of course no sooner saw them than he coveted them (he frankly confesses himself quite unable to keep the tenth commandment as far as ostriches are concerned); and we pulled up, accepted the hospitable invitation of the Boer, who doubtless read in our eyes the chance of "doing a deal," and went into the house, where, first of all, a solemn, silent, and apparently endless course of hand-shaking had to be gone through. The Cape Dutch living in very patriarchal fashion, there were not only a wife and many sons and daughters, but a well-preserved parental couple, a mother-in-law, several sons and daughters-in-law, and—needless to say—a crowd of children of all sizes, including two babies. All but the two last came forward one after another and gravely took our hands; then we all sat round the room, solemnly looking at each other, and T—— and I felt as if we were at a funeral. We would have been thankful to have fled; but—our own birds not having begun laying—we did so want those chicks, and we felt that it was worth while to endure something for their sakes.
Presently coffee was handed round in huge cups, evidently more than half filled with sugar. The more highly the good vrouw wishes to honour you, the more horribly and sickeningly she over-sweetens your cup of tea or coffee; and the syrup we had to drink on this occasion left no doubt as to the kindly feeling of our hosts towards us. The entrance of the tray was the signal for conversation to commence; and, once set free, it flowed abundantly. As we sat drinking our coffee and talking of everything but the business on which we were bent, our thoughts flashed back to Oriental bazaars, where these identical preliminaries are necessary to every bargain. The relationship of everybody present to everybody else was accurately explained to us, with much pointing, or clapping on the back, as the case might be; and we in our turn were minutely questioned as to our names, ages, number of brothers and sisters and other relatives, etc.; the women again bringing back Eastern recollections by their resemblance to the inquisitive, chattering inmates of harems. Then T—— ventured to lead the conversation round to the coveted chicks; but it was a little too soon, the subject was abruptly dropped, and we again waded through all manner of irrelevant talk until, a becoming time having elapsed, and the requirements of etiquette being satisfied, the business was allowed to commence.
After such an inauguration, it may well be imagined that the bargain was not concluded in a hurry; and we had paid a tediously long visit before we were at last the happy possessors of the chicks for which we had suffered so much; and, putting them loose into the spider at our feet, where—being about as large as ducks—they made rather a tight fit, drove off with them.
A little further on, at another Dutchman's house, and with more bargaining, we bought a young paauw (pronounced "pow"). This game bird (the great bustard) grows to an immense size, some being occasionally shot which measure nine feet across the outspread wings; but fortunately—considering the number of passengers already on board—the present specimen, being but a chick, was no larger than a fine fowl.
When we arrived at last at our original destination, the young ladies of the house presented us with a pretty little baby hare, which had just been caught; and with this wee creature nestling in my lap, and the paauw and the ostriches all scrambling about among our legs and apparently not on the best of terms, we drove the twenty miles home. The poor paauw was very unhappy, and kept bewailing his fate in a long, weird cry, like the moaning of the wind; whence he immediately acquired his name of "the melancholy Jaques." We had an amusing though rather anxious journey; for the spider—consisting simply of a kind of magnified Japanese tea-tray, supporting the lightest of seats, and mounted on four wheels, almost bicycle-like in their slenderness—was hardly the safest thing in which to convey restless live stock which was not fastened or secured in any way. The road, too, was terrible; indeed, in one place it resembled a steep, rocky staircase, and after every bad jolt I looked anxiously back to see if any of our creatures were lying on the ground. Thanks to T——'s careful driving, however, we brought the whole collection safely home, none the worse for their long journey.
Jaques, I may as well mention here, soon grew very tame; but, being—we never knew why—persistently snubbed by all the other pets, was driven to the companionship of the fowls, with which he struck up a close friendship; spending most of his time among them, and always coming with them to be fed. He would also forage about in the kitchen for scraps; and, if disappointed in his search, would utter his desponding cry, and seem quite heart-broken. He was a handsome bird; with delicately-pencilled plumage of different shades of grey and brown, a little neat crest on his head, and absurdly small feet, which looked as if they could not possibly support so large a body. Unfortunately, poor Jaques did not live to attain his full size, but poisoned himself with pumpkin seeds; which had been carelessly dropped on the kitchen floor, in spite of repeated orders that these seeds—being a deadly poison to turkeys—should always be instantly burnt as soon as a pumpkin was cut open. We lost several of our turkeys through the neglect of this rule by the stupid Hottentot girls.
Although little ostriches are such good travellers, it is anything but easy to transport full-grown ones about the world. They are wretched sailors, as T—— has found to his cost; for when, some time ago, he took several pairs of birds to Sydney, about half of them died at sea. The day before they were shipped from Port Elizabeth they were placed in a store where there was a large quantity of tobacco, on which some of them regaled, with the consequence that before they had been at sea a week three were dead from nicotine poisoning. T—— does not mind a story told against himself, so I may mention that a plan adopted by him with a view to ensuring the comfort and cleanliness of the birds during the voyage did not—as regards the former advantage—turn out quite a success. He carpeted the pens with cocoa-nut matting; and when the vessel began to roll, and the birds sat down, their legs were terribly chafed and rubbed by the roughness of the matting. And although T——, to procure rag wherewith to bind up their sores, recklessly sacrificed shirts, pocket-handkerchiefs, and whatever other linen came to hand, several succumbed. The survivors did so well in Australia that arrangements were made to carry on ostrich-farming in that country on a large scale; and T—— was about to export two hundred birds when the Cape Government, hearing of the project, imposed an export duty of £100 on every ostrich, and £5 on each egg.
Ostriches are very bad railway travellers; and avail themselves of every possible opportunity of coming to grief in the cattle-trucks; in which they often seem to be too closely packed. And as for their behaviour when travelling on foot, T—— has had some experience of the infinity of trouble they can give to those in charge of them. Having once bought a troop of ninety birds on the West Coast, he accompanied them himself on the long journey to Port Elizabeth. One night there was a stampede; and when daylight broke over the vast plain not one ostrich was in sight. Of course "there was mounting in hot haste;" and poor T—— had to ride about the country after the runaways, which were so dispersed that they could only be collected by twos and threes. He had two days of very hard work before he succeeded in getting them all together again.
When T—— first started ostrich-farming, a good many years ago, he and his partners—little knowing the "kittle cattle" with which they had to deal—thought they would do without fencing. They soon found all their birds gone; and had to scour the country for hundreds of miles in pursuit of their erratic stock, riding all their horses to death.
Profiting by this sad experience, T—— has carefully fenced Swaylands in all directions except where the steepness of the mountain forms a natural barrier. Yet in spite of all the trouble and money spent—and enclosing is one of the heaviest of all expenses incurred in starting a new farm—our birds were continually getting away. We have unfortunately the great disadvantage of a high-road running straight through the farm; and often a lazy Boer, thinking it too much trouble to kick away the stone with which he had propped the gate open while his waggons passed through—though T—— had carefully adjusted that gate to fall to and close itself—would cause the loss of several of our birds; which of course might or might not be heard of again. On one occasion over twenty birds seem to have gone out in a body, owing to the gate being left open; and only a few were eventually recovered.