Llewellyn Powys, who recently, returned to England from Africa, writes: When I hear complaints from housewives about the gas or the position of the shelves or the flow of water I wonder to myself what exacting young ladies would say if they were suddenly to be transported to some of the farms I_ know on the African veldt. What would they say, for instance, when they found the meat for supper literally hidden by thousands of giant ants, the flour musty and full of sand, and the mustard put into the pot as custard powder by the enthusiastic native cook? What would they say to an open fire-place without a grate, a kitchen black with smoke, a kitchen with a mud floor, and with a cook whose natural instinct when a plate is dirty is to lick it clean?
In Africa the settlers build their kitchens outside, a few yards away, so as to avoid having natives in their house. This has its disadvantages. I well remember on my. arrival in the country going across. to one of these little buildings to fetch something rather late in the evening when the boys had gone to bed. I found the door a and just as I was about to enter I heard a heavy, lumbering movement near the fireplace and the sound, as it; seemed to me, of rattling keys. I shut the door hurriedly and began shouting for the cook, who slept not far off.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.