We Furnished Them With
A Supply Of Seeds, And They Set To Work With Such Zeal, That They
Certainly Merited Success.
Their first attempt at African
horticulture met with failure from a most unexpected source; every
seed was dug up and the inside of it eaten by mice.
"Yes," said an
old native, next morning, on seeing the husks, "that is what happens
this month; for it is the mouse month, and the seed should have been
sown last mouth, when I sowed mine." The sailors, however, sowed
more next day; and, being determined to outwit the mice, they this
time covered the beds over with grass. The onions, with other seeds
of plants cultivated by the Portuguese, are usually planted in the
beginning of April, in order to have the advantage of the cold
season; the wheat a little later, for the same reason. If sown at
the beginning of the rainy season in November, it runs, as before
remarked, entirely to straw; but as the rains are nearly over in May,
advantage is taken of low-lying patches, which have been flooded by
the river. A hole is made in the mud with a hoe, a few seeds dropped
in, and the earth shoved back with the foot. If not favoured with
certain misty showers, which, lower down the river, are simply fogs,
water is borne from the river to the roots of the wheat in earthern
pots; and in about four months the crop is ready for the sickle.
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