Phillis, of course, cannot be trusted to go alone to that open-air larder, for she will invariably leave the bag unfastened, even if by her rough handling she does not tear a yawning rent in its side. In the house too, she does her utmost to further the evil designs of the flies, and, if she uses the meat-safe at all, makes a point of leaving it wide open till a host of "green-bottles" has collected inside; when she closes it, leaving them in blissful possession of their prize.
And oh, the house-flies! Truly the plague of flies is in every Karroo home; and, next to the servants, it is the greatest bane of farm life. And what flies they are! Their brethren in other parts of the world, though obnoxious enough, can almost by comparison be called well-behaved. For, except when eatables are about, they do seem to have some idea of keeping to themselves and minding their own business; which latter usually consists in dancing—in the air, and always in the very centre of the room—a kind of quadrille of many intricate figures, the accurate performance of which, holding them completely engrossed, keeps them, for a time at least, out of mischief. But the South African fly has no such resources of his own to keep him amused; consequently he devotes all his energy and the whole of his time to one object—that of making life a burden to the unfortunate human beings on whom he has chosen to quarter himself. Not content with spoiling your appetite at meals by the exhibition of his repulsive little black body in every dish that comes to table, every cup of tea or glass of wine that is poured out—where, whether cooked to death, or yet alive and struggling, it is an equally unwelcome and disgusting sight—he makes it his business to see that throughout the whole day you do not, if he can help it, get one instant's peace. No matter how large the room may be, no place in it will suit him for a perch but just your nose, or the hand which happens to be busily engaged in some operation requiring extreme steadiness, to which a jerk would be fatal; and however many times he is rebuffed, he comes back, with the most unerring and fiendish precision, to exactly the self-same spot, till he has set up a maddening irritation, not only of the skin, but still more of the temper. For he possesses, in the very strongest degree, the quality which led those most observant of naturalists, the ancient Egyptians, to institute the military order of the Fly. A good general, they argued, is like a fly; for, however often he may be repulsed, he always returns persistently to the attack. So they invested the successful leader of their armies with a gold chain, from which, at intervals, hung several large flies of pure, beaten gold, about four inches broad across the closed wings. And in the Cairo Museum a very beautiful chain of this kind is to be seen.
That South African fly was, indeed, the torment of our lives, until one day we made a grand discovery. We found out that he could not stand Keating's insect-powder. If only the smallest grain of it touched any part of his person he was doomed; and in about five minutes would be sprawling helplessly on his back, preparing to quit a world in which he had been so great a nuisance. "Peppering the flies" became a regular institution, the first business of each morning; and in all the rooms, most especially in the kitchen—where the whole atmosphere seemed one vast buzz—the foe would be driven, by the vigorous flapping of a cloth, into the well-sprinkled windows where his fate awaited him. Soon every fly would be dead; and as we gloated over the dustpans full of slain we invoked benedictions on the name of Keating.
By taking care to keep every door and window on the sunny side of the house either closed or covered with fine net, we managed, thanks to this delightful powder, to exist in peace, instead of being given over to the flies like our neighbours; many of whom would calmly submit to any nuisance rather than take a little trouble to get rid of it, and would sit quite contentedly in the midst of a buzzing cloud, with flies popping into their tea one after another, or struggling by dozens in the butter-dish. We found that one of the small bellows made for blowing tobacco-smoke into bee-hives became, when filled with Keating, a very formidable engine of destruction; a couple of puffs, sending the fine powder in all directions, would settle every fly in the room. In fact no one, even in the most tropical of climates, need be troubled with flies, if only this simple remedy is used. If I had but known of its efficacy a few years before, when up the Nile on a dahabieh swarming with flies! And if, in that same Egypt, poor Menephtah had only known of it three thousand years ago! Mr. Keating's fortune would have been a colossal one if he had lived then.
But to return to our Angora. As soon as the meat has been cut up it is usually sprinkled very plentifully with salt, and wrapped up for a few hours in the skin; after which the greater portion of it is put into pickle. For in the hot weather only a very small quantity can be eaten unsalted, as it becomes tainted almost at once. Even in strong brine, and with the most careful rubbing and turning, the meat is sometimes quite uneatable on the second day, especially if the weather happens to be thundery. And thunder-storms, when they do come, almost invariably select the time when an animal has just been killed. N.B.—The "pope's eye" must always be carefully taken out as soon as the meat is cut up, or the joint will immediately become tainted.
Where the family is a small one it is a good plan, during the hot weather, to include meat among the men's rations. The herds on the farms receive weekly, as part of their pay, a certain quantity of meal, coffee, sugar, salt, tobacco, etc.; and the store where all these supplies are kept and weighed out on large and business-like scales, looks—with its piles of sacks and packing-cases, its numerous shelves, rows of bottles, tins of preserved meats and other provisions—not at all unlike the general shop of an English village, with a little in the chemist's and tobacconist's line as well.
It is the work of the mistress of the house to give out the rations; and her movements, while manipulating the scales, are watched in a very criticizing and suspicious manner by the black recipients, who always seem terribly afraid that she will give them short weight. In reality she is anxiously and almost nervously careful that every pound she gives them shall be a good one; and if she errs at all it is on their side, never on her own. In the matter of tobacco her heart is especially soft, and the spans she measures off those great coils of dark-brown rope—which surely must be akin to "pigtail tobacco"—are far longer than can be stretched by her hand, or indeed by any hand but that of a giant. But in this, as in every other item of the rations, she is most unjustly and ungratefully suspected of a systematic course of cheating. Sometimes "April" or "August," struck with a sudden bright idea, comes up to the table, and, with many monkey-like gestures, makes a close investigation of the scales and weights; peeping beneath them and looking at them from all sides, to see by what artful device they have been made the means of tricking him. He fails to discover anything; but retires shaking his woolly head dubiously, and as far off as ever from believing in the honesty of his employers.
Sometimes a little barter is carried on, in quite a primitive, old-fashioned way, with Dutchmen travelling by in large waggons drawn by sixteen or eighteen oxen, and often bringing with them very good onions, oranges, naatjes or mandarines, nuts, dried peaches and figs—both of which latter are excellent for stewing,—and many other things, which they are glad to exchange on the farms for coffee, sugar, etc. This barter is quite the usual way of doing business in the Karroo; and so many transactions are carried on without the aid of money, that the latter is hardly required, and indeed is seldom seen on the farms. If a man or woman servant comes to do an odd day's work, or a passing workman breaks his journey by staying a couple of days and making himself generally useful, payment is almost always made in meal, coffee, or other articles of food, instead of in money. Copper coins, being universally despised, are not in use; consequently the most trifling service performed, however badly, by one of the coloured race, must be rewarded with no smaller sum than threepence, or—to give it its familiar colonial name—a "tickey."
Fowls, of course, with their obligingly convenient size, are an invaluable boon in the hot weather; and it is a delightful relief when, with an empty larder and consequent light heart, free for a while from the cares and anxieties of the meat, you prolong the respite, and—putting off till to-morrow the slaying of the next four-legged incubus—sacrifice in its stead the noisiest crower, or the most inveterate of the kitchen's feathered intruders. To be sure, hurried, as he is, straight from his last agonies, into the pot or the oven, you cannot expect him to be very tender; but an attempt at hanging him is too likely to result in the sudden discovery that he has hung a little too long, and you have learnt by experience that it is best to eat him at once. And a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, administered half an hour before his execution, will always considerably mitigate his toughness.
Karroo fowls, living a free and active life, are exceedingly agile on their legs, and when their time comes for paying the debt of nature they are by no means easy to catch. But Toto took this duty upon himself, and very jealously asserted his right to perform it. All we had to do was to point out to him the selected victim. Then, with the true collie instinct, he would follow it up, never losing it or making any mistake; and, though it might take refuge in the midst of some twenty or thirty other fowls, Toto would pick it out from among the crowd without an instant's hesitation. And when caught, it was never pounced on roughly, but just quietly held down by the big, gentle paws, from which it would be taken, perfectly unhurt.