United States or Cyprus ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the ‘scratchers,’ and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering. The dancing, itself, beggars description—every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle, with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable.
I've got four good feet with spring soles, and he has only two poor scratchers that are all bones and claws. Why, I could easily run from here to the pond, take a drink there, and be home again before he got as far as the fence. "'My, how big you talk, just because you're allowed to sleep in the house! Mr. Shanghai said. 'You forget my wings, Mr. Fido. Perhaps they are worth just a little.
South Australia exports wool, wheat, and copper, but the price of copper has fallen more than 50 per cent.; wheat is also very cheap, and has to compete with wheat from India; and in South Australia farming operations are too often conducted by mere "earth scratchers," who have no knowledge of agriculture.
In the sunny fields and woods we shall find many of the land-birds, and first comes a family whose habits are so like those of chickens that they are called "scratchers." These birds depend for food upon seeds and bugs or worms they scratch out of the ground. Up in the Sierra sugar-pines and fir-woods lives the largest of these "scratchers," the brown grouse.
Another day he examined John's wound tenderly, and then sat down by him with his beautiful moss-agate eyes emitting dangerous little sparkles. "It's a bad bite," he said, "the bite of a cat felis concolor. They are a bad family these cats the scratchers." He was holding John's wounded hand. "So you've had your fight with a felis. A single encounter ought to be enough!
"I happened to be out on a little hunting trip," the Indian explained, "and I saw the wildcat sneak in this thicket. I did not see the girls, though, until just as it was about to jump on them. Then I fired." "And just in time, too," declared Ruth. "Oh, if that beast had ever jumped on me I don't know what I'd have done!" "They're pretty bad scratchers," said Flaming Arrow.
Sometimes milk is poured over the head, as gold and silver in the Nuzzeranah of India. These ceremonies are usually performed by low-caste men; the free-born object to act in them. The Somal call it Hiddik or Anukub; the quills are used as head scratchers, and are exported to Aden for sale. I It appears to be the Ashkoko of the Amharas, identified by Bruce with the Saphan of the Hebrews.
We heard on every side the noise of the "scratchers," or, as the venders of these articles denominated them "the fun of the fair." By this is meant a little notched wheel, with a piece of wood fastened on it, like a miniature watchman's rattle. The "fun" consists in drawing them down the back of any one you pass, when they make a sound precisely like that of ripping cloth.
Some of the fellows were lazy and only made their scratchers twelve inches, but many a night when on guard, looking over the top from the fire step of the front-line trench, they would have given a thousand "quid" for the other six inches. Once while we were in rest billets an Irish Hussar regiment camped in an open field opposite our billet.
These combs or scratchers, for I believe they serve both purposes, they always wear in their hair, on one side their head. The people of Tanna have an instrument of this kind for the same use; but theirs is forked, I think, never exceeding three or four prongs; and sometimes only a small pointed stick.
Word Of The Day