w
"Law's" loaf was superlative in that respect. The grocer was beginning
to discriminate, so far as he dared, between his friends (his customers)
and the casual purchaser, whose affected cordiality did not deceive the
shrewd old wretch. Butter had ceased to be practical politics; fruit and
vegetables were sorely missed. When existence is rendered trying by the
scorching rays of a Kimberley sun, fruit and vegetables are essential to
the preservation of health; but there was none preserved in the summer
of the siege. Grapes grew in corrugated green-houses outside the doors
of the houses, but there were no vineyards to speak of. The quality of
the fruit, too, was poor; and though it was yet far from being ripe, it
was guarded with a vigilance that made robbing a garden a suicidal
proceeding. The indefatigable coolies--our not too green
green-grocers--did contrive to get hold of a species of wild grape, no
bigger nor sweeter than haws, and to sell them for two shillings a
pound! Two _pence_ could in normal times procure the best product of the
vine; but these of course were siege grapes, and siege prices were
charged for them, as in the matter of siege eggs, siege drinks, siege
potatoes, siege everything--that the "Law" allowed. Morning lemons were
never so badly needed; oranges would hardly suit the purpose--but they,
too, were gone. Apples were out of the question; water-melon parties had
ceased to be. The absence of the "Java" (guava) broke the Bantu heart.
"'Ave a banana" was (happily) not yet composed, and gooseberries--Cape
gooseberries do not grow on bushes. Small green things which lured one
to colic were offered by the cool coolies for twopence each--a sum that
would have been exorbitant for a gross had they not borne the hall-mark
of siege peaches.

For vegetables, too, our livers waxed torpid, and our blood boiled in
vain. The potato was gone; the benefits conferred on posterity by Sir
Walter Raleigh were at length realised in a negative way. Miniature
"Murphies" fetched four pence halfpenny _each_, while an adult member of
the _genus_ at ninepence was worth two of the little ones. Mr. Rhodes
may have luxuriated on potatoes (_cum grano salis_!) but few others were
so very Irish. The De Beers Company owned a large garden, and that this
should have been given over to the hospital was a delicate consideration
of which even the dyspeptic could not complain. Cabbages were a dream.
Of cauliflowers a memory lingered. So