The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-08-17
FARMING IN CAPE COLONY.
A Picture of Agricultural Life and Condt
tiOns in South Africa.

A Picture of Agricultural Life and Condi.
tiOns in South Africa.
''At six o'clock each morning
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 Kafir herds to pasture on the
mountain veldt. N'quami, our groom,
a long, 1.-THE Kafir from Galekaland,
more commonly known as John, has
slaughtered at the back of the house
Ga 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 abun-
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 a dead kid well
primed with strychnine pills, meaning
to deposit it in a small kloOf across the
valley for the benefit of one of the
S,,I, s,-e
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 rifle
is usually carried; for game, feathered
and furred, is plentiful, and is ever
welcome change from the monotony OF
goat-hesh Meanwhile the wife of the
Benedict amongst US is busy superin-
tending the washing, cooking and
other matters of domestic economy, as
well as the education of her little
fair-haired girl, our pride and delight.
Katie, our cook, a yellow lady of
mixed race (Hottentot, Kaffir and
Bushman intermingled), 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 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 produce; 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 flour
| ish upon our zuur veldt. Game
abounds with US. Our mountains sup
port several kinds Of antelope-the
killspringer, rhebok of two sorts, vail
and roof (gray and red), duykerbok,
and an occasional l1oodoo; the latter
one of the noblest of the South African
fauna, carrying magnificent spiral
horns and weighing from four hun
bred to five hundred pounds. st
James Gazette.