Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. PLANTS OF THE KARROO. We move up-country—Situation of farm—Strange vegetation of Karroo district — Karroo plant—Fei-bosch — Brack-bosch—Our flowers— Speckboom— Bitter aloes — Thorny plants — Wacht-een-Bcctjc — Ostriches killed by prickly pear—Finger-poll—Wild tobacco fatal to ostriches—Carelessness of colonists—Euphorbias—Candle-bush. OUR five months at Walmer passed so pleasantly, that in spite of my longing to be settled on a place of our own, and the impatience I felt to enter on all the duties and pleasures of farm life among the ostriches, I was really sorry when the time of departure came, and in the beginning of winter—i.e. towards the latter part of May—we left the little house, the first home of our married life, and took our journey up-country. We had no very long distance to travel, for the farm in the Karroo district which T had chosen was only a day's journey from " The Bay," as Port Elizabeth, like San Francisco, is familiarly called; and instead of being, like many proprietors of farms, quite out of the world, and obliged to drive for two or even three days to reach the railway, we had our choice of two stations; the nearest, Klipplaat, being only fifteen miles from us, and the railway journey not more than eight hours. Our farm, extending over twelve thousand acres, was situated in a long valley running between two ranges of mountains, the steepness of which rendered enclosing unnecessa1y in many parts; thus saving much expense in starting the farm, an entirely new one, and chosen purposely by T on this account. For it sometimes happens that land on which ostriches have run for years becomes at last unhealthy for the birds. We were in that part of the Karroo which is called the Zwart Ruggens, or "black rugged country;" so named ...