WAIFS OF THE VELD

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 19 (Supplement)

WAIFS OF THE VELD

If you happened to wander among the more remote Natal sheep farms which nestle against the lower foothills of the Drakensberg, you might come upon a lovely sight such as you may see nowhere to-day, save perhaps In Palestine, or in the sequestered places of the united Kingdom: a shepherdess leading her flock. The usual practice of driving sheep makes this sight a rarity, and this Is the way of it. The country, judged by ordinary standards, Is a hard one. Its hills, gnarled by weather and the trampling of stock, are often fit to nourish nothing more exacting than Merino sheep. In a drought even the sheep fare ill. Ewes desert their lambs because they cannot suckle them, and herdsmen bring the lambs into the farm houses, wasted and often nearly dead. Miss Natalie Robinson, whose home is on one of these sheep iarms, made it her practice about five years ago to rear by hand lambs whlon had been deserted by their mothers. Lambs brought in in a state of complete exhaustion are revived wit brandy. Miss Robinson says that sometimes they get rather drunk, as they com® round their eyes roll and she declares that she can detect a wan smile on their lips. Then she feeds them on a mixture of cow’s milk and water, and as they grow up they become increasingly attached to her. They " 11 0 " low her on her walks, picking grass at the roadside as they go, and It they should stray too far a word from her will bring them smartly back ,?al ”she thinks it a debatable point whether they know that they are Sheep at all. Thev have lost almost all their sheepish shyness of people. Thev take no notire whatever of other Their gregarious instinct is limited strictly to their own circle. And they have cultivated a nice taste in cake. At present her Hock is sixteen strong, and grows at every lambing season. Her sheep are shorn every spring, but she will not allow them to be sold, and so the Hock keeps its character and personnel as few other Robinson hopes to rear every lamb brought In to her no matter how distressing its condition. As her charges grow in numbers and stature the demands on the milk supply and on the tea-cake become more Insistent. It Is no easy thing to play foster-mother to the waifs of the veld.—Newman Robinson in the Countrywoman.