FOOD. 25 



out of condition, the cause of which on inquiry was 

 simply due to the bad dry hurrialie grass that 

 was brought for them to eat. 



Churrie. 



This is the dried stalk of one of the shorgum 

 tribe of plants, which is also known as the Chinese 

 sugar-cane. It is a summer crop cut in the autumn. 

 It grows to five or six feet high, and is cut and 

 stored by the natives as a fodder for the cattle. It 

 would to the new-comer appear to be a most un- 

 suitable article of food, but is full of saccharine 

 matter, tasting quite sweet when chewed in the 

 mouth, so much so that in parts a rough sugar is 

 extracted from it, but to look at is like a bundle of 

 dried reeds. Animals of all sorts are very fond of 

 it, and I have frequently fed my horses on it for 

 days together in out-of-the-way places where no 

 grass was to be obtained. It is not used as a regular 

 horse fodder, but it does wxll for it on a pinch. 



Bhoosa. 



In the East all grain is threshed out by the 

 primitive process of putting it in a circle and 

 driving bullocks round on it, and in this process the 

 grain is trodden out of the ear, the straw being split 



