The Entire Plantation, The Buildings Included, Comprising An Area Of
Eight Or Nine Acres, Was Surrounded By An Immense Ditch Or Foss About
Twelve Feet Deep And Twenty To Thirty Feet Wide.
It was undoubtedly
very old and had grown in width owing to the crumbling away of the
earth at the sides.
This in time would have filled and almost
obliterated it, but at intervals of two or three years, at a time when
it was dry, quantities of earth were dug up from the bottom and thrown
on the mound inside. It was in appearance something like a prehistoric
earthwork. In winter as a rule it became full of water and was a
favourite haunt, especially at night, of flocks of teal, also duck of
a few other kinds - widgeon, pintail, and shoveller. In summer it
gradually dried up, but a few pools of muddy water usually remained
through all the hot season and were haunted by the solitary or summer
snipe, one of the many species of sandpiper and birds of that family
which bred in the northern hemisphere and wintered with us when it was
our summer. Once the water had gone down in the moat, long grass and
herbage would spring up and flourish on its sloping sides, and the
rats and other small beasties would return and riddle it with
innumerable burrows.
The rats were killed down from time to time with the "smoking
machine," which pumped the fumes of sulphur, bad tobacco, and other
deadly substances into their holes and suffocated them; and I recall
two curious incidents during these crusades.
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