chiefly to hunting, until the value of ostrich feathers had induced
far-sighted men to domesticate the giant bird, and take to "farming"
ostriches--incubating them by artificial as well as natural means. Then
Rivers became an ostrich-farmer. He was joined in this enterprise by
Jerry Goldboy, and the two ultimately bought a farm on the karroo and
settled down. Rivers had a turn for engineering, and set himself to
form a huge dam to collect rain near his dwelling. From this reservoir
he drew forth constant supplies, not only to water flocks and herds, but
to create a garden in the karroo, which soon glowed with golden fruit.

In this he set a good example, which has been followed with great
success by many men of enterprise in those regions; and there is no
doubt, we think, that if such dams were multiplied, Artesian wells sunk,
and railways run into the karroos, those fine, though comparatively
barren regions of South Africa, would soon begin to blossom like the
rose.

Thus, what between ostrich feathers, wool, horses, cattle, and
enterprise, Rivers and Goldboy made themselves comfortable. Like other
men of sense, they married. Thereafter the garden had to be
considerably enlarged, for the golden fruit created by the streams which
had been collected and stored by Rivers, proved quite inadequate to the
supply of those oceans of babies and swarms of Goldboys that flooded the
karroo, and filled its solitudes with shouts and yells that would have
done credit to the wildest tribe of reddest Kafirs in the land.

Some of these descendants, becoming men of energy, with roving
dispositions like their sires, travelled into the far north, and west,
and helped to draw forth the copper ore, and to open the mines of Great
Namaqua-land--thus aiding in the development of South Africa's
inexhaustible treasure-house, while others of them, especially the sons
of Jerry, went into the regions of the Transvaal Republic, and there
proved themselves Goldboys in very truth, by successfully working the
now celebrated gold-fields of that region.

Stephen Orpin did not give up trade, but he prosecuted it with less and
less vigour as time went on, and at last merely continued it as a means
of enabling him to prosecute the great object of his life, the preaching
of the gospel, not merely to those whom men style _par excellence_ the
"heathen," but to every one who was willing to listen to the good news--
redemption from _sin_! Ah! there wa