The museum received its additions: the condor and vulture were placed there, to be stuffed when we should find time during the rainy season. The mica and asbestos, too, were brought in for the present, not to lie there idle, but to wait until I could use them as I intended, for china and lamp-wicks. Having occupied two days in this way, we turned our attention to other duties: the cultivation of a wheat, barley, and maize field, the management of the ostrich's eggs, and the taming of the captives. As agriculture was, though the least to our taste, the most important of these several duties, we set about it first. The animals drew the plow, but the digging and hoeing taxed our powers of endurance to the utmost. We worked two hours in the morning and two in the evening. Fully did we realize the words of Scripture: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." In the interval we devoted our attention to the ostrich. But our efforts on behalf of his education seemed all in vain. He appeared as untamable as ever. I determined, therefore, to adopt the plan which had subdued the refractory eagle. The effect of the tobacco fumes almost alarmed me. The ostrich sank to the ground and lay motionless. Slowly, at length, he arose, and paced up and down between the bamboo posts. He was subdued, but to my dismay resolutely refused all food. I feared he would die; for three days he pined, growing weaker and weaker each day. "Food he must have!" said I to my wife; "food he must have!" The mother determined to attempt an experiment. She prepared balls of maize flour, mixed with butter. One of these she placed within the bird's beak. He swallowed it, and stretched out his long neck, looking inquiringly for a second mouthful. A second, third and fourth ball followed the first. His appetite returned, and his strength came again. All the wild nature of the bird had gone, and I saw with delight that we might begin his education as soon as we chose. Rice, guavas, maize, and corn he ate readily--washing it down, as Jack expressed it, with small pebbles, to the great surprise of Franz, to whom I explained that the ostrich was merely following the instinct common to all birds; that he required these pebbles to digest his food, just as smaller birds require gravel. After a month of careful training, our captive would trot, gallop, obey the sound of our voice, feed from our hand; and, in fact, showed himself perfectly docile. Now our ingenuity was taxed to the utmost. How were we to saddle and bridle a bird? First, for a bit for his beak. Vague ideas passed through my mind, but every one I was obliged to reject. A plan at length occurred to me. I recollected the effect of light and its absence upon the ostrich, how his movements were checked by sudden darkness, and how, with the light, power returned to his limbs. I immediately constructed a leathern hood, to reach from the neck to the beak, cutting holes in it for the eyes and ears.