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[Page 33]
dark and we are still travelling. The country we have passed through is flat and apparently very rich. It is well irrigated. Channels about 2x2 run longitudinally through the fields. Corn & lucerne are grown also other products that I did not know the name of. There were groves of date palms here and there. These trees go straight up and branch out into drooping leaves at the top. Beneath these hang the dates in large branches. Some of these branches I observe to be protected in bagging. The animals consisted mainly of buffaloes and donkeys. There were also camel, goats & now & then a horse. The ploughing is done with oxen; two oxen to a
plough. They are very quiet animals, the smallest toddler being capable of managing them. They have a hump over the shoulders and in the hind-quarters sharply to the tail. I also saw some European cattle. The camels and donkeys were employed in carrying loads usually of an agricultural nature. Both are of course ridden. The rider sits further back on a donkey than on a horse. The donkey looks ludicrously small after being used to the horses of Australia. We passed numbers of little villages of mud huts. These huts were always clustered together sometimes even enclosed by continuing the outside walls between the huts. Some had windows but usually there was only a very small