352 CELEBES- [ohap. xv. 



all the principal supports of straight posts, to have two or 

 three of them chosen as crooked as possible. I had often 

 noticed these crooked posts in houses, but imputed it to 

 the scarcity of good straight timber, till one day I met 

 some men carrying home a post shaped something like a 

 dog's hind leg, and inquired of my native boy what they 

 were going to do with such a piece of wood. " To make a 

 post for a house," said he. " But why don't they get a 

 straight one, there are plenty here?" said I. "Oh," re- 

 plied he, " they prefer some like that in a house, because 

 then it won't fall," evidently imputing the effect 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 Mamajam 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 pre- 

 mature rains the ground was all flooded when I returned, 

 and the plants just coming into ear were yellow and dead. 

 Not a grain would be obtained by the whole village, but 

 luckily it is only a luxury, not a necessary of life. The 



