inseparable from
a prosperous African village. By the operation of pounding, with the aid
of a little water, the hard outside scale or husk of the grain is
removed, and the corn is made fit for the millstone. The meal irritates
the stomach unless cleared from the husk; without considerable energy in
the operator, the husk sticks fast to the corn. Solomon thought that
still more vigour than is required to separate the hard husk or bran from
wheat would fail to separate "a fool from his folly." "Though thou
shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, _yet_ will
not his foolishness depart from him." The rainbow, in some parts, is
called the "pestle of the Barimo," or gods. 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