United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Even as a wind carrieth the chaff about the sacred threshing-floors when men are winnowing, and the chaff-heaps grow white so now grew the Achaians white with falling dust which in their midst the horses' hooves beat up into the brazen heaven, as fight was joined again, and the charioteers wheeled round.
This poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest of which will fall to the neighboring sparrows, has carried my thoughts to the rich crops which are now falling beneath the sickle; it has recalled to me the beautiful walks I took as a child through my native province, when the threshing-floors at the farmhouses resounded from every part with the sound of a flail, and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, came in by all the roads.
This morning we started before eight, as it looked gloomy, and came through a superb mountain defile, out on to a rich hillocky country, covered with miles of corn, all being cut as far as the eye could reach, and we passed several circular threshing-floors, where the horses tread out the grain. Each had a few mud hovels near it, for the farmers and men to live in during harvest.
I am glad to find these threshing-floors in the villages, because they give me an excellent opportunity to ride and satisfy the people, thus saving me no end of worry and annoyance. The air becomes chilly after sundown, and I am shown into a close room containing one small air-hole, and am provided with a quilt and pillow.
Nothing startling turns up, however, and at five o'clock I come to a village which is enveloped in clouds of wheat chaff; being a breezy evening, winnowing is going briskly forward On several threshing-floors.
There were, besides, piles of the whitest bread, like the heaps of corn one sees on the threshing-floors. There was a wall made of cheeses arranged like open brick-work, and two cauldrons full of oil, bigger than those of a dyer's shop, served for cooking fritters, which when fried were taken out with two mighty shovels, and plunged into another cauldron of prepared honey that stood close by.
The custom of kindling bonfires on Midsummer Day or on Midsummer Eve is widely spread among the Mohammedan peoples of North Africa, particularly in Morocco and Algeria; it is common both to the Berbers and to many of the Arabs or Arabic-speaking tribes. The fires are lit in the courtyards, at cross-roads, in the fields, and sometimes on the threshing-floors.
So long, so long, has man pursued these ancient tasks; so long ago was he urging the plowshare through the furrow, so long ago the sower went forth to sow; so long ago have there been barns and byres, granaries and threshing-floors, mills and vineyards; so long has there been milking of cows, and herding of sheep and swine.
We cried unto God, and He sent a prophet to us, who told us that our trouble came upon us because of our sins, but otherwise he did nothing to help us. One day your grandfather was threshing wheat, not near the threshing-floor, for the Midianites watched the threshing-floors to see if any corn was brought there, but close to the wine-press. It was at Ophrah in Manasseh, the home of his father.
These people are early risers; the women are up milking the goats and buffaloes before daybreak, and the men hieing them away to the harvest fields and threshing-floors. I, likewise, bestir myself at daylight, intending to reach the next village before breakfast. The country continues much the same as yesterday, with the road indifferent for wheeling.
Word Of The Day