United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Those who survived their term of six or eight months, were permitted to return to their homes, until the next term commenced. But their homes were often forty, sixty, and eighty leagues distant. They had nothing to sustain them through the journey but a few roots or agi peppers, or a little cassava bread.
Whilst sauntering behind the rajah's campong I caught sight of an European woman, who on perceiving herself observed, instantly ran into one of the houses, no doubt dreading the consequences of being recognized. There are now in the house of Agi Bota two European women; up the country there are others, besides several men.
This wonderful fertility is produced by the dung of fowls, which is brought from Iquique, and which fertilizes the soil in a wonderful manner, making it produce four or five hundred for one of all sorts of grain, as wheat, maize, and so forth, but particularly of this agi, or Guinea pepper, when rightly managed.
Growing narrower about a league eastward at the village of St Michael de Sapa, they begin to cultivate the agi, or Guinea pepper, which culture extends over all the rest of the vale, in which there are several detached farms exclusively devoted to its culture. In that part of the vale, which is very narrow, and about six leagues long, they raise yearly to the value of above 80,000 crowns.
Upon this Agi Bota, who could no longer restrain himself, sent off two boats of armed men, who robbed me of many articles, and would certainly have forced me on shore, or murdered me in the proa had not a signal been made to the Bugis' nacodahs, who immediately came with their people, and with spears and krisses, drove the rajah's people overboard.
I soon discovered the cause of their apprehension; they were jealous of Agi Bota, well knowing he would plunder me, and considered every article taken by him was so much lost to the Sultan of Coti, who naturally would expect the people to reserve me for his own particular plucking.
He had also one son, Agi Melieng etc., who married the daughter of Pulang Gana, the god of agriculture, her name being Indu Kachanggut Rumput Melieng Kapian. It was amusing and instructive to hear this Iban rattle off these enormous names without any hesitation, while another Iban sitting beside him guaranteed their accuracy.
So went Bellaroba's marriage supper. "Le donne e i cavalier, gli affanni e gli agi, Che ne invogliava araore e cortesia." The little house discreet affair of eaves modest as drooped eyelids, of latticed windows, of wistaria before and a bower of willows behind was found and furnished out of the girls' store and the Captain's credit.
Once when he had spoken to her with a severity which alarmed Mercy, who feared it might irritate the queen, "Il me dit en riant qu'il en avait agi ainsi pour sonder l'âme de la reine, et voir si par la force il n'y aurait pas moyen d'obtenir plus que par la douceur." Mercy to Maria Teresa, Arneth, iii., p. 79. Arneth, iii., p. 73.
With respect to his own feelings on reading it, he observes, "that he was delighted beyond measure at the variety of the subjects and the elegance of the poetry; at the same time he wondered how things so improper and so obscene could be represented by his friend so gracefully and so neatly, and" he was of opinion that "the many excessive obscenities were expressed in such a manner that they seemed not only to be depicted but to have been actually committed; for he could not help thinking that they must be considered as facts, and not as fictions merely for the sake of entertaining the reader": "Delectatus sum, mehercule, varietate rerum et elegantia versuum: simulque admiratus sum res adeo impudicas, adeo ineptas tam venuste, tam composite a te dici, atque ita multa exprimi turpiuscula, ut non enarrari, sed agi videantur: neque ficta a te jocandi causa, ut existimo, sed acta aestimari possunt."
Word Of The Day