The Thatched Ceiling Shines
Jetty With Smoke, Which When Intolerable Is Allowed To Escape By A
Diminutive Window:
This seldom happens, for smoke, like grease and dirt,
keeping man warm, is enjoyed by savages.
Equally simply is the furniture:
the stem of a tree, with branches hacked into pegs, supports the shields,
the assegais are planted against the wall, and divers bits of wood,
projecting from the sides and the central roof-tree of the cottage, are
hung with clothes and other articles that attract white ants. Gourds
smoked inside, and coffee cups of coarse black Harar pottery, with deep
wooden platters, and prettily carved spoons of the same material, compose
the household supellex. The inmates are the Geradah and her baby, Siddik a
Galla serf, the slave girls and sundry Somal: thus we hear at all times
three languages [19] spoken within the walls.
Long before dawn the goodwife rises, wakens her handmaidens, lights the
fire, and prepares for the Afur or morning meal. The quern is here unknown
[20]. A flat, smooth, oval slab, weighing about fifteen pounds, and a
stone roller six inches in diameter, worked with both hands, and the
weight of the body kneeling ungracefully upon it on "all fours," are used
to triturate the holcus grain. At times water must be sprinkled over the
meal, until a finely powdered paste is ready for the oven: thus several
hours' labour is required to prepare a few pounds of bread. About 6 A.M.
there appears a substantial breakfast of roast beef and mutton, with
scones of Jowari grain, the whole drenched in broth.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 248 of 479
Words from 66258 to 66525
of 128411
