"To make a post for a house," said he.

"But why don't they get a straight one, there are plenty here ?" said I."Oh," replied he, "they prefer some like that in a house, because then it won't fall," evidently imputing the effect to some occult property of crooked timber.

A little consideration and a diagram will, however, show, that the effect imputed to the crooked post may be really produced by it.

A true square changes its figure readily into a rhomboid or oblique figure, but when one or two of the uprights are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each other, the effect of a strut is produced, though in a rude and clumsy manner.
Just before I had left Mamajam the people had sown a considerable quantity of maize, which appears above ground in two or three days, and in favourable seasons ripens in less than two months.

Owing to a week's premature rains the ground was all flooded when I returned, and the plants just coming into ear were yellow and dead.