United States or Caribbean Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
With the bitumen, the gufas and mahelas are "pitched without and within," in the identical manner in which we are told that the ark was built. The jars in which the women of the town draw water from the river, instead of being of copper or earthenware as elsewhere, are here made of pitched wicker-work.
Only the very conservative and these were more often to be found in the smaller towns rigorously obeyed the prophet's commands. It was pleasant to smoke in the shade and watch the varied river-craft slipping by. The public bellams plied to and fro, rowed by the swart owners, while against them jostled the gufas built like the coracles of ancient Britain a round basket coated with pitch.
No Anglo-Saxon can see them without thinking of the nursery rhyme of the "wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a tub." These gufas were some of them twenty-five feet in diameter, and carried surprising loads sometimes sheep and cattle alone sometimes men and women often both indiscriminately mingled.
Word Of The Day