106 TlMEHRI. 
When the rice came into ear all the grain-eating birds 
flocked round the devoted patches, some of them suck- 
ing the milky fluid out of the embryo rice. The ryot 
was equal to the occasion, by planting a series of 
poles one at every ioo feet with the tops slightly bent> 
and a kerosine tin containing a few pebbles suspended 
to each pole; these were joined by an endless line to 
the outside of the field, and when an urchin gave a pull to 
the string, all the tin contents gave a sudden clatter, 
quite enough to dismay and frighten the most pert of the 
feathered tribe. While this was going on the two men 
betook themselves to preparing mortars and pestles 
and a barn anent harvest ; the two span of bullocks 
having become so to say a part of the household, played 
with and caressed by the women and children. 
Harvest arrived, with need of additional hands, to 
reap the crop while it was crisp and dry ; and here came 
the first clash between manager and rice grower, the one 
wishing to keep his mill supplied, the other wanting to 
save his rice. I decided in favour of the rice grower, as 
the reaping was not likely to employ too long a time. The 
workers, with a small toothed reaping hook, smaller in 
size but much the same as the now obsolete tool formerly 
used for reaping in the old country, cut the head of grain 
off with about a foot of stalk, which being made into 
small sheaves after remaining in the sun for a time, were 
finally conveyed to the barn, a rough structure thatched 
with cane bands. A stake was driven into the ground at 
one end of the barn ; by freely ramming the surrounding 
earth, a threshing floor was secured say about 12 feet in 
diameter. The bullocks were yoked close together and 
made to walk round this stake, while sheaf after sheaf 
