Page 319 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

282 TRAVELS IN OMAN. [CH.

sides preventing its spreading, these embank­
ments also serve to retain the moisture on

the surface for a longer period. When one
of the hollows is filled, the peasant stops the

supply by turning up the earth with his foot,
.
and thus opens a channel into another *
Within these inclosures they cast the seed

by hand into narrow furrows, and afterwards
cover it over, leaving the whole a plain sur­

face. By this mode they effect a consider­
able saving of the seed, which can neither

decay from exposure to the atmosphere, nor
be carried off by the birds. Their corn is

reaped with a small sickle of a semi-lunar
shape, and notched like a saw. The man
who reaps hands the sheaf to another, by

whom it is formed, bound, and laid in a line
parallel to that which his companion is clear­

ing away. These are afterwards collected
together, and a stone of considerable size is

drawn over them by two oxen. In other

* An allusion to this custom, of the gardener changing with his
foot the channel of a stream of water, furnishes the King of
Assyria, in his threatening message, with a very appropriate
image. “With the sole of my foot," says he, “ I have dried up the
rivers of besieged places.” The practice of Arabia is also familiar
to the modern Portuguese husbandman.