LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81918, 26 February 1907, Page 4

LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

THE CIIARM OF COUNTRY LIFE CK j SOUTH AFRII>Y. ILLIMITABLE VELDT. Mrs. Fred Maturin, describing in the pages of The Lady Mime asp(j;ts ot life iu Koutli Africa, says:— There is very little comfort to be had in South Afr.ca. That the case, 1 always prefer to be uncomfortable ill the country rather than in tin: town. Take a veldt township outside Johannesburg. The life ;s distinctly allur.ng. why, no one can say. lou rent a three or four roomed cottage, with a bit of garden railed in froiiMhe veldt. You pay for this [•'RAM Xo to £lO PER MONTH, lou are, or should be, very crowded; two people to each loom, and those small. The sloep is often the only sitting rooiii, yet no sense of crowding attacks you as it would in the same sized quarters in England. Why! The luijwer i>t climate. The free, open veldt sweeps away all round you. the sky is blue and gold, and. the * leuee often intense. Two steps,, and yo;i leave your dwelling behind you, and are enveloped by the illimitable vastuess around you. Freedom i- the keynote of our love for Africa; you can get away from people who jar you. l-'or your /our roomed cottage you i have

ONE KAFFIR, OR XOXK.

None is often preferable, for unle-v you pay highly (wages are from .tt to £S a month) your katlir wants watching all the time. lie cannot cook, cannot sweep or dust, without supervision, breaks everything, and i s incorrigibly lazy, hating woTk. Good "boys" command wages beyond the ordinary purse, as a rule. You must count that any katlir will cost, you £8 a month, at the lowest, for food and wages. So many people are forced to do their own work, and do not seem to dislike it. The great drawback of country life ii South Africa is WANT OF WATER.

You learn to look back at your lif» in Englas<l (where water was a< much part of your daily existence as the s,ky over you aud the air you breathed) with wonder. Did you ever dream of saving water? You let it run to waste. Did you ever use one quantity of water for two ox three purposes? Did you watch it sinking in the tanKs as we do in Africa, in doling it out at fo much a head, and calling ycJur (thirsty family intp the garden to look up at the azure sky and say 11 they can see a cloud anywhere as token that the dry season from March to October—-fr nearly over?