SOCIAL CONDITION OF AFRICA, 229 



lected in towns or large villages, round which a circle of 

 cultivation is formed ; while beyond are pasture-lands 

 where numerous herds are fed, and watched by day as well 

 as by night. The space within the walls forms a pretty 

 wide district, where, even in the largest cities, the houses 

 are interspersed with cultivated fields, and the low roofs 

 are seen rising behind ears of com. All the processes of 

 preparing the ground, sowing, and reaping, are slight and 

 simple. The plough has not passed the limits of Barbary ; 

 and perhaps, in tropical climates, the deep furrow which it 

 lays open might expose the soil too much to the parching 

 effects of a burning sun. Grain is raised only by means 

 of the most profuse moisture, which of itself softens the 

 earth. As soon as the periodical floods have deluged the 

 ground, or the temporary river inundation has retired, the 

 labourers walk forth ; one slightly stirs the earth with a 

 hoe, while another, close behind, deposites the grain. Fre- 

 quently this toil is lightened, from being performed by the 

 whole village in common, when it appears less a scene of 

 labour than a gay festival, like our English period of reap- 

 ing. The \nllage musician plays the most lively airs ; the 

 labourers keep time to his tune ; and a spectator at a little 

 distance would suppose them to be dancing instead of 

 working. Irrigation, in all tropical climates, is the grand 

 source of fertility ; and wherever industry has made any 

 progress, very considerable pains are taken to collect and 

 distribute the waters, which either fall in rain, or are con- 

 veyed by river channels. Egypt is well known to owe its 

 fertility altogether to the canals which diffuse over its 

 plains the water of the Nile ; and in Nubia, where the 

 current remains constantly sunk in its rocky bed, there is a 

 succession of sakies or wheels, by which it is raised, and 

 conducted over the adjoining fields. In this way a belt of 

 cultivation, of about a mile in breadth, is perpetuated along 

 the whole upper course of that great river. 



In all the tropical and more arid regions, the prevailing 

 grains are of inferior character, coarse, and small, — rather, 

 as Jobson says, like seeds than grains, and fitted less for 

 bread than for paste or pottage. The dhourra is the most com- 

 mon, extending over all Eastern Africa ; while millet in the 

 west, and teff in Abyssinia,, are productions nearly similar. 

 In the latter country and Houssa, both wheat and rice are 

 U 



