102 TlMEHRI. 
the dogs at bay. My companion soon made short work 
of the ant-eater, saying it was good meat. Everything 
is meat to the African huntsman. I now gave attention 
to the mode of planting this, to me, new plant ; and in 
my after travels in the forests of the interior, I have seen 
ways of land tillage reminding me of those practised by 
the Timini rice growers. The forest is felled, all ex- 
cept the huge giants, and then after junking the branches 
and scattering them over the surface until they are dry, 
a fire is set, and the whole consumed except a few 
stumps and the larger pieces. The land in this condi- 
tion is tickled with a pointed piece of hard-wood, or 
more generally by the never absent cutlass ; a few grains 
of seed are dropped into holes, which are roughly 
covered up ; and this is the whole work the husband- 
man bestows upon the land to cause it to produce an 
abundant crop of rice, maize, ochroes, pumpkins, and the 
various legumes, such as pea, bonavist, &c, &c. 
Such had evidently been the cultivation bestowed upon 
the rice fields in question, which must have been planted 
to gain the summer rains of June and July, and were 
then in August almost ready for the sickle. 
Having reported my find to the managers — we had 
even then dual control — they were much interested in 
this work of industry on the part of the Africans, who 
had thus provided themselves with a food supply, at the 
cost of so little labour; and there was much talk about 
spreading the industry. The time came for reaping the 
rice, but unfortunately at the same time the cane fields 
required to be cut, and the rice cultivators could not be 
made to see that Massa's canes came before their rice. 
The consequence was that not only the rice growers, 
