112 



COTTON CULTIVATION. 



Chap, V. 



little further on towards N} r assa, " You should plant plenty 

 of cotton, and probably the English will come and buy 

 it." " Truly," replied a far-travelled Babisa trader to his 

 fellows, " the country is full of cotton, and if these people 

 come to buy they will enrich us." Our own observation on 

 the cotton cultivated convinced us that this was no empty 

 flourish, but a fact. Everywhere we met with it, and scarcely 

 ever entered a village, without finding a number of men 

 cleaning, spinning, and weaving. It is first carefully separated 

 from the seed by the fingers, or by an iron roller, on a little 

 block of wood, and rove out into long soft bands without twist. 

 Then it receives its first twist on the spindle, and becomes 



Native web, and Weaver smoking the huge tobacco-pipe of the country. 



about the thickness of coarse candlewick ; after being taken 

 off and wound into a large ball, it is given the final hard twist, 

 and spun into a firm cop on the spindle again : all the 

 processes being painfully slow. 



