rings, or near to them, and soon get tame enough to come up
when called. They are brought to the bails morning and evening, fastened
up, and given a feed of koraka. All cattle are very fond of the leaves
of the koraka-tree, and it is used to entice them with when that is
required. Of course, it will be understood that, as there is no cold
winter here, we do not require to house our cattle at any season, nor do
we need to provide them with hay or root food. They find their own
living all the year round, either in the bush or on the clearings, and
the most we do is to give them maize-stalks when we have some.

The bulk of the herd, numbering now upwards of two hundred head, runs
free in the bush. There is no native grass, as I have before mentioned,
and the feed is tree leafage. This suits the cattle, and they fatten
well upon it, though not turning out very large beasts. But the
pasture-fed cattle of the South are not in prime condition for market
during the dry-season. Our bush-raised beasts are, and this gives us a
pull.

The best part of one man's time is always taken up with stock duty. To
keep the cattle from becoming unmanageably wild, and from getting too
far away, they must be constantly driven up to the yards, and accustomed
to discipline. It is our practice to give every beast a night in the
yard at least once in six weeks. And it is also essentially necessary
to keep an eye on calving cows, for if the calf is not brought up at
once, branded, and so forth, it will be sure to turn out wild and a
rusher, and then it would have to be shot at once, to prevent its
infecting other beasts.

Of course, we are all stockmen more or less; but Old Colonial and the
Saint are the chief hands at this work. The latter gentleman did not
receive his appellation, as might be supposed, from any relations which
his character bore to it. He was intended for the Church at one time;
but, perhaps, the Church is to be congratulated in that it did not
receive him. There is nothing mild or milk-and-watery about our Saint,
though he has his own peculiar moral code, and is strictly scrupulous in
its observance.

The Saint is the most elaborate swearer I ever heard. That is, when he
is driving cattle. At other times he most conscientiously refrains from
everything but abstract rectitude of speech. He says that you cannot
drive cattle without swearing; that they understand you so far, and
never think you are in earnest till they hear an o