Chapter II: Part 2

My brother Donald’s wife Lizzie was as good and kind a little woman as ever breathed, but like many young wives in happy circumstances, she was a matchmaker. And being impulsive, effusive, and not quite—what shall I call it? I don’t like to say she was not quite a lady, but that would suggest my meaning—she did not pursue her calling with that tact and judgment which its delicate nature required. I need not say more, except that she had a number of spinster sisters, and one only bachelor relative, who lived all by himself in single-blessedness on his own fine and thriving property, and that I was that male victim. I beg pardon of all the Misses Lindsay for using such a term; I was not a victim as far as _they_ were concerned. But I did feel it hard that I should be laughed at wherever I went as the captive knight of half-a-dozen fair ones, when I had never had the choosing of one of them.

When I received the above letter I had just seen my last wool-bale packed on the last bullock-dray and started on its slow journey to Melbourne; and the day after I set off myself on my yearly visit to Don. He was less fortunate in respect of sheep-shearing than I, for living in an exceptionally cool district, where an exceptionally wet and wintry spring had kept everything behindhand, he had still all his troubles to come. I thought of that as I buttoned myself into my Ulster, which I was glad of that cold morning, though Christmas was only a month off; and I reflected that I should be the only unemployed man at the disposal of the household until the shearing was over, and foresaw (as I thought) the consequences. I made up my mind, however, that I would defy Lizzie’s machinations in a more systematic manner than heretofore. May I be forgiven for so priggish a determination.

It was midnight before I reached Ballarat, where Don usually met me; but upon this occasion I found a telegram stating that he was too busy to leave his farm, and would send for me next day. So I had one game of pool at the club and went to bed; and next morning enjoyed an hour or two over newly arrived English papers and periodicals, and a solitary lunch; and then the familiar old ramshackle buggy and the beautiful horses Don was famed for made their appearance, and I set off on the last stage of my journey. When I arrived at my destination it was dark and raining heavily; and the groom who opened the stable-gate told me that my brother had not long come up from the wash-place and was interviewing shearers at the hut. I was wet and muddy, so I went straight to my room without even asking for my sister-in-law, who was usually in her nursery at that hour, and proceeded to make myself respectable for dinner. Presently I heard Don about the passages (the house was ‘weather-board’ and the partitions extremely thin) asking the servants where I was; and then his head and a half-bared neck appeared in the narrow aperture between my door and the door-post.

‘Glad to see you, old boy; but I’m too dirty to come in,’ said he. ‘Seen Lizzie?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Seen Rachel?’

‘Not yet. But I say, old man, would you mind telling me how many _more_ sisters you’ve got?’

‘No more,’ said Don with a grin. ‘She’s the last one, and she’s the best of them all.’

‘Then I hope I may be allowed for once to enjoy the society of one of Lizzie’s sisters, in a friendly way,’ I grumblingly responded (for I may as well admit that Don and I had had confidences of old on this subject). ‘Don’t you think you could give Lizzie a notion that I don’t mean to get married, or that I’ve a sweetheart up the country, or something of that sort?’

‘Not I,’ rejoined my brother, laughing. ‘I’m not going to spoil her fun, poor little soul; you’re old enough to take care of yourself.’ And with that he went off, whistling cheerfully, to his dressing-room.

When I had completed my toilet, I gathered up some boxes of choice cigars that I had been purchasing in town, and carried them to the door of the adjoining apartment, which had been Don’s smoking-room ever since I had known it. To my surprise, the bolt shot sharply as I touched the handle, and I heard a rustle of drapery inside. A housemaid coming along with lamps for the dinner-table called out hastily: ‘O sir, that is Miss Rachel’s room now. The smoking-room is at the end of the verandah, where Miss Carry slept last year. Mrs Gardiner wished it to be changed because she didn’t like the smell of tobacco so near the bedrooms.’

I took back my boxes, thinking no more about it, and went on to the drawing-room, which was full of light and warmth and comfort, as usual, and where I found two of my little nieces sitting demurely on a sofa in their best frocks, ready to rush into my arms. Lizzie came hurrying in after me, rosy and radiant, and with plenty of flounces and colours about her, and gave me her own enthusiastic welcome; and then Don, spruce and perfumed, joined us. Don in his early years had been a dandy, and a little youthful weakness remained in him still. He never came to dinner without rings on his fingers and subtle odours in his clothes; and he was at great pains to keep a pair of Dundreary whiskers accurately adjusted on each side of a closely shaven chin. He had been ten years in the Bush, and had never objected to ‘roughing it’ in a general way; but he persisted in shaving himself every morning, let what would, happen; which singular habit in an Australian country gentleman very much puzzled his bearded friends. I for one, used to quiz him as well as I knew how, when I saw him swathe his neck in a handkerchief, before going out to his work, if the sun shone too strongly; but I respect his little vanities nowadays, and hope he will keep his white throat and his Dundreary whiskers as long as he lives, bless him. He took one of his little girls on his knee, and questioned me about my station matters and about Conolly’s sheep-wash (which was _not_ so well furnished with improvements as his own, much to his satisfaction); and Lizzie gave me an account of the development of her respective children since I had seen them last, including the cutting of the baby’s teeth; and then the dinner-bell rang.

‘Where’s Rachel?’ inquired Don.

I turned a languid eye upon the door when we heard the sound of a distant rustle, expecting to see one of the smart and smiling damsels I was so used to, and wondering whether this one would be dark or fair. With a slow and quiet step she came along the hall and entered the room, and my heart began suddenly to beat in a very unpleasant manner. She had a delicate, thoughtful, but piquant face, wavy brown hair modestly and becomingly set, and a slight figure daintily dressed in pale blue silk, with a little white lace about throat and arms; and yet she was the image of Marie Antoinette in Delaroche’s picture, only with a more majestic dignity of carriage, if that could be, and a more cold and calm disdain upon her face. As soon as I saw her, and felt the exceedingly faint acknowledgment she vouchsafed when we were formally introduced, I intuitively guessed—with a horrible sense of shame and mortification—that she had overheard what I said to Don in my bedroom through those card-paper walls!

I never thought I should feel so concerned at standing ill with one of Lizzie’s sisters as I felt before that evening came to an end. All through dinner I saw, without looking, offended dignity in the poise of her head and the studied repose of her manner, and heard the ring of it in every inflection of her voice, though it was so subtle and delicate that only a guilty conscience could detect it. It was a great deal worse in the evening, when Lizzie began her fussy little contrivances for throwing us together. The poor little woman never had so impracticable and aggravating a sister to manage; and I never met one who attempted to treat me with such open indifference and thinly-veiled contempt. It is unnecessary for me to state the consequences. I began to interest myself in this Miss Lindsay as I had never interested myself in the others. I began to hanker for her good opinion, as I had never hankered for theirs. I longed to set myself straight with her, and beg her forgiveness for a thoughtless insult that I would have given worlds to recall, and to feel that the way was open between us to meet and associate as friends. This longing grew apace as the evening wore on, but the prospect of its gratification grew less and less. Until the little ones were taken away by their nurse she devoted herself to them, telling them stories most of the time in a dark corner, whence merry chatter and ripples of subdued laughter came flowing out to us; but when they were gone, the bright vivacity that was her true characteristic went too, and she became Marie Antoinette again.

With an amiable wish to make things pleasant, Lizzie asked her to pour out the tea; but she merely stood in front of me at the tea-table, with her little nose in the air, and asked me whether I took sugar and cream, in a high clear tone that brought a puzzled wonder into her sister’s face and a slow smile to Don’s. I came and stood beside her, to take the cups from her hand (her pretty head was about level with the flower in my button-hole), and she tried to ignore me, but could not. Her hands shook slightly and a little angry flush came and went in her face; but I preferred that to having no notice at all. Later on she went to the piano, and sung song after song for the delectation of Lizzie and Don, neither of whom had the hearing ear and the understanding heart to appreciate the pure quality and poetic sweetness of her voice. By this time I was very low-spirited, and I drew away from my host, who was growing sleepy after his hard day’s work, and took a chair near her—which of course was a signal to Lizzie to leave the room. As she sung on, forgetful of me and of everything but the poetry awaking in her, and as I studied the pose of her slight figure and half-bent head, and the now dreamy happiness in her face, and listened for the first time after many years to the true translation of a language that I loved, a vague perception dawned in me that there was some latent fellowship between us. And then I felt that Fate had indeed been hard.

The silence of the room was presently brought into strong relief by a deep snore from Don, whereupon she suddenly rose from the piano and saw that we were virtually alone. ‘Good-night, Mr Gardiner,’ she said promptly, holding out a somewhat reluctant hand and stiffening back into her unnatural stateliness.

I took it and held it and looked into her face; and I tried to tell her, as well as plain ‘good-night’ would do it, that I knew what had happened and wanted her to forgive me. I think she guessed what my look meant, by the sudden crimson flame in her face; but she walked out of the room with as much dignity as she had first walked into it, without another word.

* * * * *

The early days of December were cold and wet, and the shearing was a protracted and troublesome affair. Don hovered about restlessly, whether in or out of the house, always bothered and anxious, and paying frequent visits to the barometer. The ladies clung to their fireside as if they had been in England; and I tied myself to Lizzie’s apron-string with an abject alacrity that puzzled and charmed her. My opportunities for ‘improving the occasion’ were many, but somehow I could never turn them to account. The pride of that little maiden was quite beyond my management. Lizzie threw us together; she left us alone; she did all that in her lay to further my desires for a reconciliation and an understanding; but the implacable resentment of the last of the Lindsays towards me for that wretched slip of the tongue was a stone wall I could not climb over. The worst of it was, she did and said nothing tangibly offensive; and I was precluded by all sorts of considerations from mentioning the subject we were both (and that we both knew we were) thinking of. So matters went on day after day. And before a great many days were past I was over head and ears in love—I may as well say it and have done with it—and began to feel desperate and dangerous. She walked about the house with her grand air, my Queen Marie Antoinette, my little tyrant that I could almost have demolished with a finger and thumb; and I, standing six feet three in my stockings, had to acknowledge that she was invincible as well as unmerciful. Unregenerate savage as I was, I had faint longings now and then to take her by those slender shoulders, and shake her.

There were times when she became her sweet self, and could not help it though she tried; and these times were born of music. She and I both loved music with that special love that nature permits to a few people; but to no one else in the house did the ‘heaven-born maid’ present attractions. Don, hard at work all day, could go to sleep after dinner in his arm-chair; and Lizzie, after her manner, could go out of the room in the middle of the most charming song. Then, when we were singing together, or when she was gentle and gracious with the spirit of melody in her, then was the oil thrown upon my troubled waters. At times such as these it flashed across me that she was aware of it.

At length on one of these occasions I made a dash at her guarded citadel; I will not say in what words, but with the blundering foolishness that I suppose characterises all implied aspirations; albeit with sufficient plainness to leave no chance of being misunderstood; and then I had indeed to bite the dust for once in my life. She had been singing _Ruth_ with the most touching pathos and abandonment—‘Where thou goest I will go, and there will I be buried’—and I could not stand it. Don was in the room, but snoring in that comfortable undertone which denoted a sound and quiet slumber. She stood with her back to the piano, and the sheet of music trembling and rustling in her hands, watching his nodding head in the distance, and turning her delicate profile to my view.

‘No; I will not,’ she half whispered with haughty rapidity. ‘You should have known I would not. I do not particularly want to marry anybody,’ she added, flashing round upon me with her crimson face; ‘but I will never marry _you_. I made up my mind to that long ago.’

Everybody knows how, in the supremely solemn moments of one’s life, one is apt to be assailed with most incongruously ludicrous ideas. In spite of my bitter mortification at her reply, an absurd rhyme that I had heard somewhere, flashed into my head:

Do not be like Nancy Baxter,
Who refused a man before he’d axed her.

I believe she saw the ghost of a smile that might have hovered round my eyes when I begged to know why she had made up her mind never to marry me; and that made her savage.

‘Because you think I came here to be made love to,’ she retorted, with all the concentrated contempt that her sweet face and voice could hold. ‘You think Lizzie and I have been plotting to catch you—you think we wanted to inveigle you into marrying me! I know what you are going to say’—as I rose and seized her hands, to stop her—‘but it is not the truth. I _heard_ you’—lifting her angry eyes, now wet with unshed tears, to mine—‘I heard you, with my own ears, tell Don to warn Lizzie beforehand that you did not want to be married.’

‘I know you did,’ I replied, tightening my hold of her hands, while she made feeble efforts to get away; ‘and I wish my tongue had been cut out before I could have insulted you and her like that. Forgive me, Rachel; I have been punished enough.’

‘I cannot,’ she answered, still panting with her excitement. ‘I should be ashamed of myself if I could take a man who had even _thought_ of me like that.’

Two tears began to trickle from her eyes, and a little hysterical catch in her breath betrayed to me that her defiant courage was failing her. I would not let her go. Love and shame and a resentful disappointment made me a little savage too.

‘I never _did_ think of you like that,’ I said sternly; ‘and you know it. I must hold you till I clear myself—I cannot bear it’——

A log tumbled in the grate, and Don woke up. She caught away her hands and sped out of the room; and I walked through a French window into the cool summer night, too full of wrath and love to speak to anybody.

This was how we stood when at last (on Saturday, the 18th of December) the true Christmas weather came, and we found ourselves in the hot afternoon alone on the croquet-lawn—alone for the first time since my stormy wooing was interrupted. Don being still busy in the sheep-yards and shearing-shed, I had been playing singly against Lizzie and her; and now Lizzie had been called away to the nursery to consult with a needlewoman who was at work there. We were both anxious (though for very different reasons) to leave off playing when our chaperon had departed; but it was not easy to do so in the middle of a game, especially as she had instructed her partner to play for both of them until she returned. So we knocked the balls about for a few minutes in embarrassed silence, and then had an altercation as to which hoop Lizzie had been through; and then we both got a little huffy, and played, first with indifference, and then with a malicious energy, which resulted at last in my sending her partner’s ball into the thickest Portugal laurels in the shrubbery.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ I exclaimed with compunction, as she solemnly marched off to look for it. ‘Let me find it for you.’

‘Do not trouble yourself,’ she replied sharply; and immediately dashed in between the laurel and a very prickly rose-bush, whose long sprays caught her muslin dress and tore it. I saw her straw-hat amongst the big dark branches, and her little hand searching under them for a moment or two; then she started up suddenly with a quick cry, and bounded into the path again.

‘What is the matter? Have you hurt yourself,’ I asked anxiously.

Her hat fell to the ground, and she stood before me with the blazing sun on her pretty head, and a wide-eyed horror in her face. ‘Wait a minute for me!’ she panted breathlessly; ‘I want you to help me—I have been bitten.’ Before I could collect my senses to understand what she meant, she had sped like a flash of light into the house; and dashing into the laurel bush, I saw what had happened. A big black snake was gliding away from the spot where she had been kneeling.

What was to be done? I stood still for a moment paralysed; then I sent up a hurried prayer for help, and simultaneously ‘cooeyed’ three or four times with all the force of a powerful pair of lungs, for Don at the wool-shed. Then I hurried after her, and met her coming through the door of my brother’s dressing-room with one of his razors in her hand. Her face was white and set as she seized my hand and hurried me into the smoking-room, which was near us, and turned the key in the lock. I knew what she wanted; and I set my teeth in an agony that no words could express, and which I can never think of now without a shudder.

‘Look!’ she said piteously, with a little sob in her throat; and I looked, and saw one of the fingers of her left hand tied round tightly with a piece of string below the first joint, and the end of it already livid and swollen and shewing the unmistakable punctures of the snake’s fangs. She laid her other hand on my arm, and looked up at me with a beseeching face that nearly unmanned me.

‘Help me!’ she whispered eagerly; ‘now—now; before the others come!’ And she held out the razor, open and shining. ‘It is no use to suck it—it only wastes time,’ as I seized her finger and put it in my mouth. ‘Don’t, don’t! I want to be on the safe side. I don’t want to die! O pray, pray help me!’—now sobbing passionately—’or else I must try to do it myself. I won’t cry out; I won’t mind it. I will turn my head away.’ She laid her finger on the edge of the table, and I took the razor from her, and with all the courage I could muster, excised the wounded part. She bore the cruel operation without a murmur.

* * * * *

An hour afterwards the commotion in the house was over, but the shadow of death was on it. Rachel was in her bed, white and faint and breathing heavily, twitching with weak fingers at the bedclothes, and staring with dull eyes into the sad faces around her. I knelt in my room close by with my head on my outspread arms, weeping like a child as if my heart would break, and listening to the creaking of the doctor’s boots and the whisking of skirts and whispering of awed voices on the other side of the thin wall. There was nothing else that I was privileged to do, now that I had done that dreadful thing which they told me might be the saving of her precious life.

As the twilight fell, the voices in the sick-room took a louder and more cheerful tone; and presently one of them called softly: ‘Jerry, I want you.’ Lizzie met me in the passage with a tremulous tear-stained smiling face. ‘The doctor says she will be all right now, and that she has to thank you for it,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t stay here any longer; go and have a cigar with Don.’

I seized her hand and kissed it, and looked at her with my wet eyes full of foolish emotion, too glad for speech; and the brightening intelligence of her countenance was curious to note. ‘I thought you didn’t care for each other,’ she said archly; ‘but,’ she added drily, ‘I suppose I was mistaken.’

‘Don’t suppose anything, Lizzie, there’s a good girl. But let me know when I may see her,’ I replied earnestly.

‘All right—I understand—I’ll let you know,’ she said, nodding her head vigorously with an air of mystery and importance; and then I went, not to have a cigar with Don, but to walk about the dark garden alleys, alone with my thoughts.

Our patient improved steadily all night, so much so that the family assembled at breakfast as usual. Then a great hunt was made for the snake (at Lizzie’s instigation, on the children’s behalf), which lasted a long while and was wholly unsuccessful. Then church-time came, and the buggy was ordered to take the servants and the little girls to church; and the hot day wore on. Towards evening, as I was loafing about the garden, Lizzie came running across the croquet lawn—where the balls and mallets were still lying about as we had left them, though it _was_ Sunday—and told me that Rachel was up and dressed, and that she chanced to be alone in the drawing-room.

I stole in to her in the twilight with my heart beating fast; and for a few moments she did not notice me. She was standing by the open piano, small and white and weak, with a shawl wrapped round her, gazing at the silent key-board, with tears running down her face. No one could look less like Delaroche’s Marie Antoinette than she looked then.

I took three long steps and reached her side; she gave a great start and turned round to meet me. ‘I shall not again be able to play to you for a long while!’ she said, looking up at me for sympathy in this new trouble with her soft wet eyes.

When she said that—instead of making me the little speech I had expected, thanking me for saving her life—I put out my arms. And though we said no word, we forgave one another.

And how pleased Lizzie was when she saw the last of the Lindsays transferred to my unworthy self.

IRRIGATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.

The irrigation of lands by water-channels connected with rivers is accepted as an important means of agricultural development in countries subject to protracted droughts, where rain falls only at distant and uncertain intervals. The irrigation caused by the periodic overflow of the Nile is a noted case in point. But for the annual overflow, temporarily deluging the land for a foot or two, Lower Egypt would be barren instead of a scene of fertility. In a country like England, where there is, generally speaking, too much moisture, the chief consideration is to dry the land sufficiently by draining, instead of flooding it with water; the lesson being thus taught that as regards the culture of soils every country must act according to circumstances. In India, also in Ceylon, there are some remarkable instances of the value of irrigation, and in these countries much more of the same kind requires to be done to avert the horrors of lengthened drought and famine. On this subject, we propose to say a few words regarding large tracts in Southern Africa, which are very much in the condition of those parts of Egypt fertilised by the waters of the Nile.

We speak first of the river Oliphant, which falls into the sea on the west of Cape Colony, and which has various important affluents. The land through which these streams flow is of a most desolate character—broad belts of sand, interspersed with low scrubby bush, swelling into moderate hills, with rugged mountains for a background. Upon the country in the lower part of the Oliphant River rains have no appreciable effect; but when the soil is thoroughly soaked by the overflow of the streams, after the periodical inundations, and then covered by the deposit brought down by the floods from the upper districts, its fertility is wonderful. The average yield is more than a hundredfold. The quantity of land of this character along the Lower Oliphant alone was estimated by the government surveyor in 1859 as eight thousand seven hundred acres.

Thus, like Egypt with its Nile inundations, those districts of Cape Colony—otherwise almost barren—are annually fertilised. But unlike Egypt, the country is unprovided with any means for utilising to the full extent the advantages thus conferred. No appliances are prepared for the purpose of storing the water thus brought down; no artificial channels are cut for directing it and spreading it over a large area; and when the short rainy season has passed, the inhabitants are content to sit down and wait for the next ‘periodical.’

A characteristic story is told by a colonist who visited the locality some years ago: ‘I strolled along the banks of the river, and was much struck with the extremely fertile appearance of the soil, and the very little which had been done for turning it to account. It seemed as if the Creator had done everything for the country, and man nothing. Scarcely any rain had fallen for some time past, and the river had not overflowed its banks for more than a year. The stocks of grain and vegetables were getting very low. The farmer was complaining much about the long protracted drought; and when he had finished, I took the liberty of pointing out how he could, by leading out the stream for the purposes of irrigation, or by fixing a pump to be propelled by wind, on the river’s bank, secure an abundant supply independent of the weather. He seemed to listen with some interest to the development of my plans; and I began to hope that he had decided upon doing something to relieve himself of the difficulty; but eventually, after turning round and scrutinising the whole horizon in the direction of the river’s source, as if in search of some favourable symptom, he yawned heavily, and merely observed in Dutch: “Oh, it will rain some day!”’

Of the Zout or Holle River, the most northerly of the tributaries of the Oliphant, Mr P. Fletcher, the government surveyor, says: ‘By its arteries it brings together the rich karroo soil of the Hantam and Hardeveld and the rich sandy soil of Bushmanland. The best crop of oats I have seen in Africa was in the deposit of this “periodical.” Other portions are of a very saline character. At a rough guess, I believe that in many spots a dam might be constructed three or four feet high, and a couple of hundred feet long, which would flood several hundred acres, thereby rendering them richly arable. I have measured some of last year’s “slick” two feet deep; this, of course, was under the most favourable circumstances; but by the use of dams, the deposit might be regulated, the fresh slick might be allowed to deposit to its full extent, so that in a few years the lands would be out of the reach of ordinary floods, if desirable that they should be so. By this system of irrigation, even the most saline basin would become available to agriculture, and about nine or ten thousand acres on the banks of this one periodical river might be brought under cultivation, which would even excel the richest soil in the “Boland” (upper country).

‘Several tributaries to the Zout River have extensive karroo deposits; some of their basins reaching to nearly one mile in breadth, and their fall being so little, that, standing in their delta, a person cannot sometimes judge with the eye which direction water would flow. Their water-course, which winds through the middle of the deposit, is always well defined, and shews a longitudinal section of the plain. Except in ordinary heavy rains, those channels carry off all the water without overflowing, while a few pounds would leave them in a condition to produce fifty, eighty, or even one hundred-fold. Such is the nature of several tributaries of the Hartebeeste River. I have not seen the latter, but have been more than once informed that it has in some places a deposit of five miles in breadth, that when it does overflow, there is abundance of grass for all the cattle that visit that quarter. If this description of the Hartebeeste River be correct, the products it may be able to yield either in the form of grain or pasture for cattle would appear to most people fabulous. We have here, and not here only, but over an extensive portion of the whole colony, the richest soil in the world lying at present for two-thirds of the year utterly unoccupied, waste and worthless.’

The Hartebeeste is the last principal tributary, from the south, of the Orange River, and rises in the same chain of hills as the Tanqua, one of the tributaries of the Oliphant—namely, the Roggeveld Berg, receiving affluent streams from the south-east and south-west, draining in fact nearly the whole of the central northern part of the colony. This district is at present almost neglected. The chain of hills in fact, which runs from east to west across the centre of the colony, cuts off the northern half from the mass of the colonists, notwithstanding the fact that here is the most fertile land in South Africa.

The Zak, as the upper part of the Hartebeeste is called, is another instance of the wonderful effects upon the soil of periodical inundations. The following particulars are given in Mr Noble’s book on _Cape Colony_. In the dry season these streams are comparatively small, and often a mere succession of pools; but after rains they run briskly, and where level with the banks, overflow and soak the adjacent flats. In many places so very even is the country that they may be said to have no defined channel, and form extensive sheets of water a few inches deep. The Zak River at two hundred and fifty miles from its source thus varies in breadth from one to four miles; and further on from Onderste Doorns to Leeuwenkop it widens as much as ten miles. Along its course is the most valuable part of Great Bushmanland. Water can be obtained in its bed even when dry, and its valley generally affords pasture to cattle during both the winter and summer months. After floods, there are extensive alluvial bottoms on each side of it, where agricultural products of every kind might be raised. These are now commonly used by the squatters as sowing lands, without any labour or trouble beyond scratching in the seed. One overflowing of the soil is sufficient to insure a crop even although no rain should fall afterwards. The returns are something marvellous, especially those of wheat.

In 1859 the number of Europeans settled on the irrigable portion of the Oliphant was estimated at one hundred and twenty souls. When there was an overflow of the river, they were active enough; day and night they worked incessantly; the sun and the moon alike witnessed that they did not eat the bread of idleness. But talk to them of improvements in the way of artificial irrigation by dams or pumps, and they ridiculed the idea. Such was the description given at that time; and such, with very little alteration, is an accurate statement of affairs now. The population of Calvinia and Clanwilliam, the two districts drained by the Oliphant River, was in 1875, 15,856, of whom only 2046 were classed as ‘urban.’ These figures of course include the natives as well as the settlers; but they represent an enormous advance in population since 1859. It is probable that if measures were taken to secure the permanence of the advantages which are now only temporarily enjoyed, the population and wealth of the districts would rapidly increase.

Of the fertility of the soil without any attempt at cultivation, there are abundant evidences. A sandy plain apparently as barren as the Sahara itself is suddenly transformed into an expanse of waving grass for hundreds of miles, so soon as the annual rains occur. This ‘twaa-grass’ or Bushman grass is an excellent fodder for horses and cattle, which thrive and grow fat upon it in a few weeks: even when dried up in the winter it is better feeding than any available green pasture. The natives scratch in their seeds and leave them to ripen, which they do without the least attention, and whether the country is visited by drought after the summer rains or not.

The principal drawback to the complete cultivation of the lands is the absence of roads or water-carriage. The Orange River, though a magnificent stream, and navigable in certain parts of its course, is blocked by narrow gorges, shallows, falls, and other impediments, and is useless as a water-way. In time probably, it may be made available, by means of inter-communicating canals to enable the rapids, &c. to be passed; but at present the community must look to the extension of roads and railways for the means of fully utilising the produce which would be raised if a ready market could be found. In this respect a decided step has already been taken. A railway of ninety miles in length has been constructed from Port Nolloth on the north-west coast, in Namaqualand, to the upper mining districts, its terminus being at Ookiep. On the most difficult portion of the route the cost has been very little more than a thousand pounds a mile for this distance; and it might be extended further eastward at a still less cost, to the great advantage of the country drained by the Hartebeeste. Another railway, or a good system of roadways, is wanted to open up the Oliphant water-shed; and with these means of carrying away the produce—all that is necessary—the immense natural resources of the district would be fully developed. In the Fraserburgh district, where the Upper Zak river rises, substantial houses, springs, wells, and dams have already been constructed, and plantations and gardens are being extended; but then from Fraserburgh excellent roads run east and west; and the railway to Cape Town comes as far as Beaufort, situated sixty or seventy miles south-east.

Finally, in Great Bushmanland, diamonds have been found; but there are far greater and more permanent sources of wealth than diamond-fields. Sheep and oxen can be raised, and their wool and hides turned to profitable account. Wheat, grapes, and vegetables of all kinds will grow in abundance. In fact, for pastoral and agricultural qualities the country is unsurpassed. Here then is a field for the enterprising emigrant from our own country. Capital alone is wanting for its development; and capital however small, judiciously expended, must be at once remunerative. We are glad to be able to add that an Act has been passed by the Cape Parliament for granting facilities to landowners for obtaining by loan or otherwise the means of improving their lands by irrigation or other similar permanent works.

Other districts prove how the colonists have succeeded in turning what was, more really than Great Bushmanland or the Lower Oliphant can be said to be, a ‘howling desert’ into valuable farms, by opening up springs, making dams, forming irrigation channels, and planting trees where no trees existed, and where water was only an occasional and very ephemeral visitor. There is no reason indeed why the ‘Nile lands of South Africa’ should not rival in productiveness the great ‘world’s wonder’ in the north of the continent; after which, from natural circumstances, they have been not inaptly named.

ALBATROSS NOTES.

Far out in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, often two thousand miles and more from the nearest land, sails the albatross in its graceful and powerful flight; now following in the wake of the ship, to catch any chance morsel that may have fallen from the cook’s waste-basket; now skimming along the water, and occasionally snapping up some small ocean-waif from the crest of a wave; or with a few vigorous strokes of its broad wings, gliding easily round and round the vessel, though she may be going at the rate of a dozen knots an hour.

No passenger to southern lands can have failed to note the extraordinary powers of flight of this magnificent bird, and the wonderful ease with which it sweeps for some minutes together through the air on expanded motionless pinions, rising and falling slightly, and taking advantage of the gravity of its own body and the angle at which the wind strikes its feathered sails to prolong the course of its flight with the least possible effort. Seldom, except in very calm weather, may it be seen to alight upon the water, from which it rises with difficulty, running for some distance along the surface. The ends of the wings clear of the water, it turns towards the breeze, and rises into the air in a gentle curve, in exactly the same manner as a paper kite. That the albatross follows a ship for many days in succession, sleeping at night upon the water, and coming up with her in the morning, there can be no doubt. We have watched them for several consecutive evenings during fine weather, in the latitude of the trade-winds, settling down on the water at sundown, and preening their feathers, until they became mere specks in the field of the telescope; but they were with us again in the morning soon after sunrise; some strangers among them perhaps, but several which, from some peculiarity of marking, we knew to be our companions of the day before. In one instance, a conspicuous mark had been made by a pistol-bullet in the wing of an old brown-headed and curiously pied bird, by which he could be identified beyond doubt. The second or third flight-feather had been shot away, leaving a clearly defined gap in the wing as it came between the light and the eye; and this bird followed us for three days after having been fired at, though we had been sailing an average of nearly eight knots an hour. One of the most striking examples of their endurance on the wing, however, is the fact, which we have more than once observed, that the same birds which had been unweariedly following us in the day, accompanied us throughout the whole of the succeeding night, as could be easily verified by the light of the moon.

It is a not uncommon practice with passengers to endeavour to catch these noble birds by a bait fastened to a hook and buoyed with corks. That such a cruel practice should ever be tolerated, even ‘to relieve the monotony of the voyage,’ is to us inconceivable, and can only be accounted for as the last resource of a brutally morbid fancy.

The albatross is essentially the scavenger of the ocean, and we doubt whether it makes any attempt to capture living fish unless when very hungry, for we have seen flying-fish rising in quantities while the albatrosses made no attempt to catch them. That the nautilus is sometimes eaten is evident, for we have taken it from the stomach; but the chief food is dead fish and other refuse. In the South Atlantic we passed the dead body of a small whale, on and around which were at least a hundred of these birds, either gorged or gorging themselves with the blubber; and guns discharged at them failed to induce many of them to take wing. We had on one occasion an opportunity of observing how rapidly these birds collect about a carcase. Like vultures or ravens, when an animal dies they discover it very speedily, and flock to the scene of the banquet. On a hot still evening in the South Atlantic a horse died, and when cast overboard next morning, the gases already formed by decomposition enabled it to float. The few albatrosses in our company immediately settled down upon it; but in less than an hour we could see through the telescope a great cloud of the birds on the sea and hovering round the unexpected prize, the almost entire absence of wind having kept us within two or three miles of the spot. It may be that the (usually) white plumage enables stragglers, far out of human ken, to see their fellows gathering in the neighbourhood of food; others again from still more remote distances may see them, and so on; until stragglers over hundreds of miles of space may be gathered to one common rendezvous.

The greater part of the year is passed by them at a distance from land; but they flock to barren and almost inaccessible rocks to breed. There the female lays her one dirty-white egg in a slight depression upon the bare earth, the sitters being frequently so close together that it is difficult to walk without touching them. They are totally indifferent to the presence of man, and merely indicate their resent of his intrusion into their nursery by snapping at him as he passes. The parents share the labour of incubation and rearing the young, and when this is over, they all go seawards together, and silence and solitude once more reign where all had lately been clamorous and busy life.

The range of the albatross is very considerable, and it may be met with to the extreme limits of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, in the South Atlantic and North and South Pacific Oceans, both at sea and near headlands and isolated rocks. During the months of May and June in the northern, and the months of November and December in the southern hemisphere these rocks are tenanted by countless numbers of albatrosses and their smaller brown relations, known to sailors under the name of ‘Mollymawks.’ No one who has visited an albatross nursery will readily forget the scene. Placidly sitting upon the one precious egg is the parent, male or female as the case may be; and as far as the eye can reach over the surface, the rock is crowded with the sitters, indifferent to the presence of the human visitor. They know nothing of man’s destructive nature, and they fear him not. Many of them have never seen that curious biped before, and those which have chanced to see him on his ships and to have suffered from his guns, are more likely to have then regarded him as a part of the white-sailed monster which traversed their ocean domain, than a separate creature; and fail to recognise him as he ‘molests their ancient solitary reign.’

While viewing the interminable white forms thus crouching upon the earth, above wheel in graceful circles hundreds of their mates, sending congratulations in a hoarse piping voice to those beneath on the progress of the all-important business of rearing the family. Here and there sit callow uncouth nestlings; and from seawards come the parents to discharge the contents of their maws into the insatiable stomachs of the expectant young. Now and again one of the ‘bread-winners’ of the family swoops past the observer on its twelve feet of outspread wings, so near that he feels the shock of the divided air, and can realise the immense strength of the muscles which propel the creature, who, however, is a coward in spite of his size; for the skua gull, a bird many times smaller than himself, will often attack him and compel him to disgorge the product of his last foraging expedition.

As soon as the albatross has reared its young, a penguin frequently takes possession of the deserted nest, and in the very cradle of a bird destined to traverse the ocean on unwearied wings lies a nestling whose wings will never develop into anything more than a pair of paddles! Great numbers of albatrosses are caught by the natives of the North Pacific coasts, who use the inflated intestines as floats for their fishing-nets, and barter the hollow wing-bones with traders for the European markets—these bones being familiar to us as pipe-stems. The large webbed feet when inflated make good tobacco-pouches. We have also seen the quills of the flight-feathers converted into floats for roach-fishing; and many a Thames angler patiently watches from his chair in the punt a feather which has probably helped to carry its former owner over the length and breadth of the Pacific.

A NOVEL LIFE-BOAT.

Mr J. Manes of Fourth Avenue, Newhaven, Connecticut, has invented a new kind of life-boat which seems to possess features worthy of notice. ‘His boat consists of a hollow globe of metal or wood, ballasted at the bottom, so that it will always right itself immediately on touching the water, and can never capsize even in the roughest sea. It has compartments for water, medical stores and provisions, bull’s-eyes to let in the light, a door for ingress and egress, a porthole for hoisting signals to the mast, comfortable seats all around the inside for the passengers, and a double hollow mast for supplying fresh air, and for carrying off that which has become vitiated. On the outside of the Globe boat runs a gallery, for the use of sailors in rowing, hoisting sail, discharging rockets, or steering. Of course the cases would be very rare when rowing, sailing, or steering would be required, but in case of need, all three could be easily managed.’

In such a boat—which is like a large buoy fitted with a mast—the passengers would be protected from rain and wind, and consequently to a great extent from cold. This seems to us to be a very important point, as many a shipwrecked person escapes drowning only to perish from exposure to the weather. Mr Manes suggests that a propeller might be attached to the boat to be worked by a crank turned by the passengers on the inside. It is calculated that a boat twelve feet in diameter would carry about fifty passengers, and that it could be carried on deck or hung over the stern on davits, in either of which positions it might be used as a cabin during the voyage; and further, if hung on a universal point like a compass, it would retain its equilibrium no matter what the motion of the ship might be, thus affording a safe retreat for persons subject to sea-sickness.

AWA’.

LINES WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OF JEANIE, A FAVOURITE CHILD, AGED SEVEN YEARS.

Thou ’rt lyin’ cauld an’ still, my bonnie bonnie;
The dews o’ death lie heavy on thy broo;
Thy sunny smile nae mair will thrill this bosom;
Thy sweet blue een are dark an’ sichtless noo!

Hushed is thy fairy tread, my bonnie bonnie;
Thy lips sae rosy red, I’ll kiss nae mair.
O heavy thocht, that dims this ee wi’ sadness!
O heart that fain wad break, wi’ anguish sair!

I cry thy name in vain, my bonnie bonnie;
For aye thy form, thy dear-loved form I see;
O face sae fair! O locks o’ golden splendour!
O guileless heart, that fondly throbbed for me!

A dreary blank is mine, my bonnie bonnie;
Nae mair thy merry voice will cheer my ha’;
An eerie stillness fills the darksome dwelling,
Since thou, my sweetest flower, wert ta’en awa’!

The angels cam’ for thee, my bonnie bonnie,
As saftly flickered oot life’s feeble flame:
The tender Shepherd took thee to His bosom,
An’ left me wi’ a lanely, lanely hame!

But oh! thou ’rt wi’ the blest, my bonnie bonnie,
Where pain will rend thy gentle breist nae mair;
Oh, when this weary heart lays doun its sorrow,
My ain wee lassie, may I meet thee there!

JAMES SMITH.

* * * * *

The Conductors of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL beg to direct the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:

_1st._ All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339 High
Street, Edinburgh.’

_2d._ To insure the return of papers that may prove ineligible,
postage-stamps should in every case accompany them.

_3d._ MANUSCRIPTS should bear the author’s full _Christian_ name,
surname, and address, legibly written.

_4th._ MS. should be written on one side of the leaf only.

_5th._ Poetical offerings should be accompanied by an envelope, stamped
and directed.

_Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the Editor cannot undertake to return ineligible papers._

* * * * *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

* * * * *

_All Rights Reserved._