NATIVE AGRICULTURE. 425 



off in strips, according to the size they can get it, then damped and beaten by 

 heavy wooden hammers till pliant, and afterwards sewn into a shirt, the 

 colour of Chamois leather, but much thicker ; the outer bark is thrown away. 

 Near the villages a few scrubby bushes of cotton were grown upon mounds 

 made by white ants. Looms of the rudest construction converted the pro- 

 duce of these into a hard, very stout, heavy cloth, about four or five feet in 

 size, with one-fourth of it a black border, and woven by women only. 

 Sessamum grew in ridges with the sorghum ; its oil, and that extracted from 

 the ground-nut, being used by the natives for smearing themselves from head 

 to foot, giving their skins a handsome colour, like the gloss on polished 

 marble. To vary the colour some red clay is added. The sorghum is some- 

 times afflicted with a black blight, but the natives do not think this any dete- 

 rioration; all goes into the mill. They live upon Indian corn, ulezee, 

 sorghum, made into flour, by rubbing the grains between stones, as a house- 

 painter pounds colours. Their vegetables are sweet potato, and the leaves, 

 flowers, and fruits of pumpkins ; and they brought us, daily, ground nuts, 

 tobacco, and fowls, for sale. On the 3rd of April, the rice-harvest was being 

 gathered in; but we perceived no traces of irrigation, as in Egypt. Abundant 

 rains gave an ample crop. The reapers consisted of negro women and girls, 

 who sang pleasantly, though the scene was marred by the sight of a gang of 

 men-slaves, heavily ironed together by their necks, with some superintend- 

 ants, gleaning. Those who had small knives, cut the stalk four or five inches 

 below the grain, and held it in their left hand till the hand was full, when it 

 was placed in a huge tub of bark lying in the field. 



The thrashing of the rice was novel. A quantity of ears was placed upon 

 a cow's hide, slaves in irons were made to work it with their toes and feet, and 

 winnow it in the wind ; and after being thoroughly sun-dried upon a clear 

 space of cow-dunged ground, it was fit for the process of shelling in the large 

 pestle and mortar. If a considerable amount was to be thrashed, a bludgeon 

 answered the purpose of the negro's feet. The stubble would afterwards be 

 turned over with powerful long-handled hoes, beds of the soil made, and the 

 suckers or offshots of the sweet potato planted there by bands of twenty or 

 thirty villagers, shouting and singing the whole time. If one Seedee (negro) 

 had to clean rice in the wooden mortar, a dozen hands would set about the 

 work of two. It could not be done without those who worked keeping time 

 with their feet to the song, the lookers-on clapping hands, and stamping with 

 their feet. The work and song never ceased until the rice was pounded 

 almost into dust — such joyous, reckless creatures are these Africans. Yams 

 are grown upon mounds of earth, placed all over a field, the branches of the 

 plant trained upon a stick, or more commonly allowed to crawl over the 

 ground. They do not attain a great growth. Grain is buried under the eaves 

 of stack-shaped huts, or a clustered mass of Indian-corn may be seen suspended 

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