Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fect to some occult property of crooked timber. A little consideration and a diagram will,
however, show, that the effect imputed to the crooked post may be really produced by it. A
true square changes its figure readily into a rhomboid or oblique figure, but when one or two
of the uprights are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each other, the effect of a strut
is produced, though in a rude and clumsy manner.
Just before I had left Mamájam the people had sown a considerable quantity of maize,
which appears above ground in two or three days, and in favourable seasons ripens in less
than two months. Owing to a week's premature rains the ground was all flooded when I re-
turned, and the plants just coming into ear were yellow and dead. Not a grain would be ob-
tained by the whole village, but luckily it is only a luxury, not a necessary of life. The rain
was the signal for ploughing to begin, in order to sow rice on all the flat lands between us
and the town. The plough used is a rude wooden instrument with a very short single handle,
a tolerably well-shaped coulter, and the point formed of a piece of hard palm-wood fastened
in with wedges. One or two buffaloes draw it at a very slow pace. The seed is sown broad-
cast, and a rude wooden harrow is used to smooth the surface.
Native wooden plough
By the beginning of December the regular wet season had set in. Westerly winds and
driving rains sometimes continued for days together; the fields for miles around were under
water, and the ducks and buffaloes enjoyed themselves amazingly. All along the road to Ma-
