1 844.] Agricultural and Land produce of Shoa. 265 



extreme violence during July, August, and September, thus affording 

 during twelve months an abundant moisture for two harvests, which 

 the succeeding sun soon brings to maturity. 



36. The ground according to universal custom, is ploughed at four 

 different times of the season, and when the sky is cloudy and over- 

 cast; the seed is committed to the earth, without the ceremony of har- 

 rowing, or otherwise pulverizing the large clods ; where the steepness of 

 the mountains prevents the use of bullocks, the ground is broken up 

 with the pick-axe by the hand of the husbandman, but the instru- 

 ments of culture are of an exceedingly primitive fashion, and the im- 

 pression made upon the hard baked soil, is of a very imperfect and 

 evanescent nature. 



37. The oldest forms of the plough of which we have any descrip- 

 tion in ancient authors, are very simple indeed ; a mere wedge with 

 crooked handle to guide it, and a short beam by which it was drawn, 

 forming the component parts of the entire instrument, and the plough 

 now used in Abyssinia seems to differ very slightly from the old model. 



38. This machine, called airsea, is extremely rude in its con- 

 struction, and so slight, that a child might carry it in his arms; the 

 share is of wood and slightly armed with a tiny bit of iron, and it has 

 only one handle or shaft for the guiding hand of the driver ; with such 

 an instrument, the peasant is under the necessity of bending almost 

 double, and loading it with his own weight, in order to make any im- 

 pression whatever upon the soil, otherwise it would glide innocuous 

 over the surface. 



39. From the imperfect construction of this quaint and primitive 

 plough, a clean furrow cannot be cut up and turned over, a rugged 

 rut being the utmost effect of the rude instrument : the soil can there- 

 fore only be broken by frequent crossing and recrossing the field, and 

 it is evident, that however often traversed by a machine of this sort, 

 the wild roots of any tenacity can never be entirely removed, so 

 that this mode of culture must be always very imperfect, and the 

 necessity of working so many crossings a very great waste of labour 

 indeed. It is no uncommon sight to see on the king's or governor's 

 extensive domains, fifty or a hundred ploughs at work together, and as 

 the fields are never divided into ridges, and neither order nor regu- 



