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Updated: May 3, 2025
He floated before the face of the sun, and hid the earth from it. Then day after day the cloud dropped rain. The rivers overflowed, and the rice-fields were covered with water. Towns were swept away. Only the great rocks on the mountain-side stood unmoved midst the flood. The cloud looked at them in wonder, then he sighed: "Ah me! Ah me! If Hofus only a rock might be!" And the voice answered:
In autumn the squaws used to go in their canoes to these natural rice-fields, and, bending the tall stalks over the gunwale, beat out the heads of grain with their paddles into the canoe. It is mentioned among the dainties at Hiawatha's wedding-feast: "Haunch of deer, and hump of bison, Yellow cakes of the Momdamin, And the wild rice of the river."
The rice-fields are divided into many small plats or pans, about ten yards square, with ridges of earth eighteen inches high, for the purpose of retaining the water, which is kept two or three inches deep over the roots of the grain, till it is just ready to ripen.
We still saw groves of mulberry and olive trees, from which the finest oil is obtained, and fields of maize and hemp, interspersed with meadows. Beyond Stra the cultivation of rice commences; and, although the rice-fields must render the country unhealthy, still it has not the reputation of being more so than any other.
Our path lay over a finely-wooded hill, from which we had a full view of the Peer Punjal range, now divested considerably of the snows which lay upon it at the time we started for Thibet. Gradually descending into the valley proper, we soon found ourselves once more among the waving rice-fields and apple-orchards, while the wooden tenements again gave way to mud and stone, and thatched erections.
I remember one night very well I think it must have been the very night after the fight at Laka, and we were all of us round the fire. I remember there was a half-moon bending towards the west, throwing tender lights upon the hills, and turning into a silver gauze the light white mist that lay upon the rice-fields.
The waters of the lake, some twenty-three miles in length, once perhaps washed the west wall, but it is gradually silting up, and to-day it is five miles away and is reached by heavy sampans which ply the narrow canals that intersect the rice-fields.
This water is brought from a lake which itself overflows into a little river. The tank has three large pillars handsomely carved with figures; these connect above with certain pipes by which they get water when they have to irrigate their gardens and rice-fields. In order to make this tank the said king broke down a hill which enclosed the ground occupied by the said tank.
For a while the way winds through a long narrow winding valley between wooded hills: the whole extent of bottom-land is occupied by rice-farms; the air has a humid coolness, and one hears only the chanting of frogs, like a clattering of countless castanets, as the jinricksha jolts over the rugged elevated paths separating the flooded rice-fields.
"Meanwhile, in southern lowlands the rice-fields, that have been hoed and flooded with water all the season to make the grain grow, are covered with tall stalks of rice, whose grains are not quite ripe, but soft and milky like green corn. "Some morning there is a great commotion on the plantation. 'The Ricebirds have come! is the cry this being only another name for the Bobolink.
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