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From the large areas the bulk of the rice-crop is shipped to Rangoon, sufficient for the needs of the people being stored in the villages in receptacles formed of wicker-work covered on the outside with mud.
It is true there have been terrible famine years, when the wheat-harvest has perished, or when the rice-crop, upon which the lives of thousands of people in India and China depend, has failed from want of water; and the hand of God in judgment may at times be seen in these years of drought; but through His goodness in giving "rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons," the earth still brings forth food, and will do so, for God's own word assures us that "while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest ... shall not cease."
The Kayans avoid the skin of the tiger even more strictly than the Kenyahs or any other tribe; even a great chief will not touch a tiger-skin, and we have known one refuse to enter a house because he knew that it contained a tiger-skin war-coat. It is very common in their district, but they will kill it only when it is stealing their rice-crop; and they will never eat it as other peoples do.
Lower Bengal gathers in three harvests each year; in the spring, in the early autumn, and in December, the last being the great rice-crop, the harvest on which the sustenance of the people depends.
And when they came to the mountain top, and saw the beautiful rice-crop all in flames, beyond help, they cried bitterly, "Who has done this thing? How did it happen?" "I set fire," said the old man, very solemnly; and the little grandson sobbed, "Grandfather set fire." But when they came fiercely round the old man, with "Why? Why?" he only turned and pointed to the sea. "Look!" he said.
Millions of famished wretches died in the struggle to live through the few intervening weeks that separated them from the harvest, their last gaze being probably fixed on the densely-covered fields that would ripen only a little too late for them..... Three months later, another bountiful harvest, the great rice-crop of the year, was gathered in.
That this belief still prevails may be verified by any one who studies the peasant-life of Japan. It is not to the Buddhas that the farmer prays for bountiful harvests, or for rain in time of drought; it is not to the Buddhas that thanks are rendered for a plentiful rice-crop but to the ancient local god.
During the latter ones it advanced to twopence, and in certain localities reached fourpence." The course taken by the great famine of 1866 well illustrates the above views. This famine, also, was caused by the total failure of the December rice-crop, and it was brought to a close by an abundant harvest in the succeeding year.
Yet it will appear that the government, with the best of intentions, did all in its power to make matters worse; and that to its blundering ignorance the distress which followed is largely due. The first duty incumbent upon the government in a case like that of the failure of the winter rice-crop of 1769, was to do away with all hindrance to the importation of food into the province.
So in the East the growing rice-crop is often treated with the same considerate regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboyna, when the rice is in bloom, the people say that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make no other noises near the field, for fear lest, if the rice were thus disturbed, it would miscarry, and the crop would be all straw and no grain.