lyo PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



next oven. By making the lining as a large jar or amphora, 

 this was done ; and the common oven of Western Asia is 

 simply an amphora of 6 or 7 feet high, let half way into the 

 ground, and filled from the top in the way I have described. 

 To us it is a startling thing to see an Armenian baker, or 

 a Syrian, take a cake in his hand, and swing himself over 

 the fire in this jar, to stick it on, while his feet are kicking 

 acrobat-wise in the air ! And not altogether appetising 

 is the sight of an unwashed boy, with a dingy cloth tied 

 to the end of a stick, dipping it in whitey-brown water, 

 and then flapping the cakes in the pit-oven to keep them 

 from burning : or the sight of the baker's ragged coat 

 stretched over the orifice to keep in the steam, and loaded 

 down with an old camel-cloth, or donke3^-cloth, and other 

 unsavoury fabrics, on the top of which some passing 

 Lazarus may lie down for a nap in the warm. I made a 

 vow never to eat of that bread . . . but " necessity knows 

 no law " ! 



We have only to go a few steps in the same street to 

 find a Turkish oven. This is the Asiatic one turned on 

 its side : the lower side being flattened to lay the loaves 

 on, and a door placed at the mouth, so as to work it 

 horizontally instead of acrobatically ! The Turkish oven 

 is that of all western nations ; and anyone ^^ who is 

 familiar with the dome-shaped clay ovens LJ used in 

 country cottages will be able to trace every step of the 

 evolution from the Tartar pit in the desert, up to Huntley 

 and Palmer's newest patent. 



Now let us return to the agricultural tools. In the 

 Museum at Tiflis there is a plough-share which gives us 

 a clue to another very interesting evolution : that from 

 the iron hoe to the shovel ; and from this again to the iron 

 plough. 



A little thought would show, even if we had no historic 

 evidence of it, \ that the earliest instrument of tillage is 

 a hooked stick ^ drawn towards the worker : for if 



