Boys And Girls, By Constant
Practice With The Pestle, Are Able To Plant Stakes In The Ground By A
Somewhat Similar Action, In Erecting A Hut, So Deftly That They Never
Miss The First Hole Made.
Let any one try by repeatedly jobbing a pole with all his force to
make a deep hole in the ground, and he will understand how difficult
it is always to strike it into the same spot.
As we were sleeping one night outside a hut, but near enough to hear
what was going on within, an anxious mother began to grind her corn
about two o'clock in the morning. "Ma," inquired a little girl, "why
grind in the dark?" Mamma advised sleep, and administered material
for a sweet dream to her darling, by saying, "I grind meal to buy a
cloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady."
An observer of these primitive races is struck continually with such
little trivial touches of genuine human nature.
The mill consists of a block of granite, syenite, or even mica
schist, fifteen or eighteen inches square and five or six thick, with
a piece of quartz or other hard rock about the size of a half brick,
one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concave
hollow in the larger and stationary stone. The workwoman kneeling,
grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it backwards
and forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone, in the same way
that a baker works his dough, when pressing it and pushing from him.
The weight of the person is brought to bear on the movable stone, and
while it is pressed and pushed forwards and backwards, one hand
supplies every now and then a little grain to be thus at first
bruised and then ground on the lower stone, which is placed on the
slope so that the meal when ground falls on to a skin or mat spread
for the purpose. This is perhaps the most primitive form of mill,
and anterior to that in oriental countries, where two women grind at
one mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old when she
entertained the Angels.
On 2nd October we applied to Muazi for guides to take us straight
down to Chinsamba's at Mosapo, and thus cut off an angle, which we
should otherwise make, by going back to Kota-kota Bay. He replied
that his people knew the short way to Chinsamba's that we desired to
go, but that they all were afraid to venture there, on account of the
Zulus, or Mazitu. We therefore started back on our old route, and,
after three hours' march, found some Babisa in a village who promised
to lead us to Chinsamba.
We meet with these keen traders everywhere. They are easily known by
a line of horizontal cicatrices, each half an inch long, down the
middle of the forehead and chin. They often wear the hair collected
in a mass on the upper and back part of the head, while it is all
shaven off the forehead and temples.
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