Sheep are the best. Here is one example, by no means extraordinary, but forming an average sample of the fruits of sheep-farming:--A gentleman who was reading for the Church, at Cambridge, found that his health would not allow him to continue his studies; he emigrated to Algoa Bay, with a capital of about two thousand five hundred pounds. He wisely listened to good advice in the selection of a farm and the purchase of his stock of sheep. At the end of three years I visited him, and we talked about sheep-farming, which was then in a bad condition. I was expressing my wonder that so many sheep-farmers had lately been “sold up;” and this was his reply, “What else could you expect? Half of them come out here without one farthing of capital. They hire a farm; buy stock on credit (for two or three years), live on the sale of the wool and also on credit--for they live ‘like fighting-cocks’--and then when pay-day comes at last, they, of course, have not a sixpence. But, look at my own case: I have been here three years; my wool fetches double the price that it did the first year; my stock is just doubled in number and vastly improved in quality; I have lived in as much comfort as I require in the meantime; and I don’t owe a sixpence.” The life of a Cape farmer is necessarily solitary. His nearest neighbour is probably seven miles off, and his only daily companions are his stock and his labourers. A visitor (especially if he come from one of the Towns) is a veritable Godsend; and is safe to be welcome as long as he chooses to remain. He may ride his host’s horses and shoot or hunt his game, smoke his pipes, and drink his “Cape Smoke,”[A] as long as he pleases. But he must be contented with very rough fare. Mutton and goats’ flesh, meal-cakes (very similar, I fancy, to those which King Alfred burnt), Indian corn, and badly-made coffee, will form the staple articles of his food. He will sleep on a home-made sofa with goatskins for blankets, in a room with a mud floor, and very probably no ceiling but the thatch roof. The house will most likely be built of lath and plaster, and look far more like the stable of a third-rate country inn than a gentleman’s residence. Yet the host is often a highly educated and sensible man, fighting his way to competence, living a comparatively easy life, and, if unblessed with luxuries, at least unharassed by cares, save when an occasional wolf (or rather hyæna) makes a night assault on his homestead. [A] Cape Brandy.