karoo-bush a green fly is laying her silver eggs. We carry them home, and
see the shells pierced, the spotted grub come out, turn to a green fly, and
flit away. We are not satisfied with what Nature shows us, and we see
something for ourselves. Under the white hen we put a dozen eggs, and
break one daily, to see the white spot wax into the chicken. We are not
excited or enthusiastic about it; but a man is not to lay his throat open,
he must think of something. So we plant seeds in rows on our dam-wall, and
pull one up daily to see how it goes with them. Alladeen buried her
wonderful stone, and a golden palace sprung up at her feet. We do far
more. We put a brown seed in the earth, and a living thing starts out--
starts upward--why, no more than Alladeen can we say--starts upward, and
does not desist till it is higher than our heads, sparkling with dew in the
early morning, glittering with yellow blossoms, shaking brown seeds with
little embryo souls on to the ground. We look at it solemnly, from the
time it consists of two leaves peeping above the ground and a soft white
root, till we have to raise our faces to look at it; but we find no reason
for that upward starting.

We look into dead ducks and lambs. In the evening we carry them home,
spread newspapers on the floor, and lie working with them till midnight.
With a started feeling near akin to ecstasy we open the lump of flesh
called a heart, and find little doors and strings inside. We feel them,
and put the heart away; but every now and then return to look, and to feel
them again. Why we like them so we can hardly tell.

A gander drowns itself in our dam. We take it out, and open it on the
bank, and kneel looking at it. Above are the organs divided by delicate
tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and
each tier covered by a delicate network of blood-vessels standing out red
against the faint blue background. Each branch of the blood-vessels is