Huntsville gazette., 1888-08-18
FARMING IN CAPE COLONY.
A Picture of Agricultural Life and Condi-
tons in South Africa.

tioHs III South <AiiiC<ss
eat six O'clock each morning earlier
in summer after Sallie, our little
Kaffir maid-of-all-work, has brought to
each of us, while in bed, the matutinal
cup of coffee, without which, no Cape
farmer, British or Dutch, begins the
| day, one of our number rises and goes
to the adjacent kraal to count the
goats as they issue forth in charge of
their Kaffir herds to pasture on the
mountain veldt. N'quami, our groom,
a long. 1.-the ILaffirs from Galekaland,
more commonly known as John, has
| slaughtered at the back of the house
! Ca single-storied, brick-built messuage,
| fat-roofed and white-washed, and
| perched high on the mountain side
near a perennial fountain) the goat
which each day is sacrificed for the
needs of our household, and the kid
| neys, fry and a chop or two are grilled
for breakfast. Honey, found in album
dance in the rocks around us, takes the
place Of marmalade. Breakfast over,
one of us rides off to the shallow kloof
three miles further away in the mount
aims, where our horses and mules are
run, under the care of Tobias, our
Dutch servant. Another of US busies
himself marking goats, whilst third
| (there are three of us-One married)
takes on his back dead kid well
prfmed with strychnine pills, meaning
to deposit it in a, small kloof across the
valley for the benefit of one of the
numerous leOpards which infest our
farm. This is the only method of
keeping down these night marauders,
which do cruel execution on our focks
and foals. Then attention. must be
given to the little patch of alluvial land
by the dry river-bed, where we. grow
sufficient grain for our wants, and odd
jobs have to be done. A gun or rife
is usually carried; for game, feathered
and furred, is plentiful, and is ever a
welcome change from the mOnotony Of
goat-fesh. Meanwhile the wife of the
| Benedict amongst us is busy superin-
tending the washing, cooking and
OUliCI I1tbpbC1o vi NOll1CotIC COOAO1uN do
well as the education of her little
fair-haired girl, our pride and delight.
Katie, our cook q yellow lady of
mixed race (Hottentot, Kaffir and
Bushman intermingleG, attends to
the baking of our cookies cakes of
unleavened meal which usurp the
place of bread, and which are baked
and capitally baked, too-in a hole
in the ground, heated in the native
| fashion. If we do not make money
nowadays as we did q few years since,
when the railways were being built,
we live in a rude plenty; meat in
abundance is ours, dried fruits
| ounces and peaches, excellent when
stewed-bought from the Beers WHO
pass us occasionally with wagonloads
of produces; oranges and grapes in
season from the. irrigated farms of
Beers out beyond the Poort, whence
we emerge from our mountain home,
and porridge. of pounded 'mealies and
milk occasionally. Goats milk we
have in plenty. but no butter or
cream, for cows and oxen do not -four
ish upon our zuur yeldt. Game
-abohnds with US Our. mountains sup
port several kinds of antelope-the
killspringer, rhebok ofstwo sorts, vail
and roo lgray and dsred y, ,@tiuykerbok,
and an occasional .keodoo; the latter
one Of the noblest-of the South African
fauna, carrying magnificent spiral
horns and weighing from four hun
dred to five hundred pounds.i9-St.
Ja1ses' Gazette. l....t .....t..l... 9g ~
| -. - III