Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1888-08-17
FARMING IN CAPE COLONY.
Picture OF Agricultural Life and Condi-
tlons In South Africa.


A Picture OF Agricultural Life and Condl-
tlons In South Africa.
"At six o'clock each morning-earlier
in summer-after Sallie, our little
Kaillr maid-of-all-work, has brought TO
each of us, while in bed, the matutinnl
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 Kailir herds to pasture on the
mountain vcldt. N'quami, our groom,
II long, 1.-the Kaillr from Galekaland,'
more commonly known us John, has
slaughtered ut the back of the house
Ga singlc-storied, brick-built messuage,
ilat-roofed and whitc-washed, and
perched high on the mountain side
near perennial fountuin) the goat
which each day is sacrificed for tho
needs of our household, and the kid
neys, fry and n chop or two are grilled
for breakfast Honey, found in abun-
dance in the rocks around us, takes the
place of murmalade. Breakfast over,
one of us rides off to the shallow kloof
three miles further away in the mount
aims, whore 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--onc married)
takes on his back dead kid well
primed with strychnine pills, meaning
to deposit it in small kloof across the
valley for the benefit of one of the
numerous lcopards which infest our
farm. This is the only method of
keeping down these night marauders,
which do cruel execution ON our Hocks
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 II
welcome change from the monotony of
goat-nesh. 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, II 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 n 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 flour
ish upon our Zuur veldt. Game
| abounds with us. Our mountains sup
port several kinds of antelope-the
killspringer, rhebols of two sorts, vail
and roof (gray and red), duykerbok,
and an occasional koodoo; 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. "-St.
J,,,,,,si T,-,y,