oblong-bladed

Updated: May 26, 2025

We ran north of the second archipelago above the gate; south of us lay the "Low Islands" of the chart, with plantations of beans and tobacco; the peasants stood to stare like Icelanders, leaning on oblong-bladed paddles six feet long, or upon alpen-stocks capped with bayonets; the "scare-crows" were grass figures, with pots for heads and wooden rattles suspended to bent poles.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2