It made us sometimes wonder whether it was quite right to leave German ducks and fowls and sheep behind us, when we had to live on mealie meal and tough trek-ox.

This, with their "pocha," the allowance of mealie meal or mahoga, keeps them fat, their stomachs distended, bodies shiny and spirits of the highest.

In the mealie fields are francolins in coveys, very like the red-legged partridge in their call, though in plumage nearer to its English brother.

The women grow mealies, the men make continual forays on their neighbours.