Who
can relate without compassion, that after all their diligence they
are to expect only a triple increase? It is in vain to hope for
plenty, when a third part of the harvest must be reserved for seed.
When their grain is arrived at the state which they must consider
as ripeness, they do not cut, but pull the barley: to the oats
they apply the sickle. Wheel carriages they have none, but make a
frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse with the two points
behind pressing on the ground. On this they sometimes drag home
their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open panier,
or frame of sticks upon the horse's back.
Of that which is obtained with so much difficulty, nothing surely
ought to be wasted; yet their method of clearing their oats from
the husk is by parching them in the straw. Thus with the genuine
improvidence of savages, they destroy that fodder for want of which
their cattle may perish. From this practice they have two petty
conveniences. They dry the grain so that it is easily reduced to
meal, and they escape the theft of the thresher. The taste
contracted from the fire by the oats, as by every other scorched
substance, use must long ago have made grateful.
