Then the ridges on which they planted maize, beans, cassava, and sorghum, and which they find necessary to drain off the too abundant moisture of the rains, still remain unlevelled to attest the industry of the former inhabitants; the soil being clayey, resists for a long time the influence of the weather.

These ridges are very regular, for in crossing the old fields, as the path often compels us to do, one foot treads regularly on the ridge, and the other in the hollow, for a considerable distance.

Pieces of broken pots, with their rims ornamented with very good imitations of basket-work, attest that the lady potters of old followed the example given them by their still more ancient mothers,--their designs are rude, but better than we can make them without referring to the original.
[Illustration: Imitation of basket-work in Pottery.] No want of water has here acted to drive the people away, as has been the case further south.

It is a perpetual succession of ridge and valley, with a running stream or oozing bog, where ridge is separated from ridge: the ridges become steeper and narrower as we approach Mataka's.
I counted fifteen running burns of from one to ten yards wide in one day's march of about six hours; being in a hilly or rather mountainous region, they flow rapidly and have plenty of water-power.

In July any mere torrent ceases to flow, but these were brawling burns with water too cold (61 deg.) for us to bathe in whose pores were all open by the relaxing regions nearer the coast.