NATIVE WATCHERS OVER INDIAN CROPS. 293 



the platform raised about ten feet from the ground, 

 the best form of machan, as he does not think a tree 

 a favourable stand for shooting. * Indeed in all his 

 African travels, we do not remember his mentioning 

 a single instance of his having waited for game in a 

 tree, or attempted night-shooting otherwise than in a 

 shooting pit or hole, in the way we have already de- 

 scribed. The machan is therefore a method of shoot- 

 ing peculiarly East Indian, and there can be no doubt 

 that these platforms (either on scaffolds or in trees) so 

 frequently used in Hindustan, take their origin from 

 the very ancient practice of native watchers sitting 

 up by night to guard their fields, and to prevent the 

 destruction of their crops by wild animals. For this 

 purpose they made rude platforms upon which the 

 watchers perched themselves, for reasons of personal 

 security. This practice has been in vogue from very 

 remote times, both in Africa and throughout the East, 

 and therefore attracts very little attention from wild 

 animals, where they are in general use. Shepherds on 

 the other hand mostly drove their flocks into some 

 sort of enclosure, surrounded by thorn bushes, f or in 

 treeless or thickly settled neighbourhoods by rough 

 walls of loose stones; this is known as the "Kraal" 

 system in South Africa, and it has been in use there 

 long antecedent to historic times. In all probability 

 at the era of the " Nativity" at Bethlehem, recorded 

 in the New Testament, it was at just such places that 

 shepherds were found " abiding in the field, keeping 



* Wild Beasts and Their Ways, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, 1891, 

 Vol. i., p. 153. 



y These thorn enclosures are called " Zarebas " among the Arab tribes 

 of Northern and Central Africa. 



