When the corn is cut, the whole produce of a field is brought to one open spot, where the surface of the ground is hard and smooth; the oxen and their drivers trample in a continued circuit over the whole mass, until the corn is not only threshed from the husks, but the straw broken into fine chaff.  They winnow it with their coarse blankets, or chuddahs[22] (the usual wrapper of a Native, resembling a coarse sheet), and house the separate articles in pits, dug in the earth, close to their habitations.  Such things as barns, granaries, or stacks, are never seen to mark the abode of the Native farmers as in Europe.

An invading party could never discover the deposits of corn, whilst the Natives chose to keep their own secret.  This method of depositing the corn and chaff in the earth, is the only secure way of preserving these valuable articles from the encroachment of white ants, whose visits to the grain are nearly as destructive, and quite as much dreaded, as the flights of locusts to the green blades.

The corn in general use for horses, sheep, and cattle, in called gram;[23] the flavour resembles our field pea much more than grain.  It is produced on creepers, with pods; and bears a pretty lilac blossom, not unlike peas, or rather vetches, but smaller; the grain, however, is as large as a pea, irregularly shaped, of a dark brown skin, and pale yellow within.  There are several other kinds of grain in use amongst the Natives for the use of cattle; one called moat,[24] of an olive green colour.  It is considered very cooling in its nature, at certain seasons of the year, and is greatly preferred both for young horses and for cows giving milk.

Horses are subject to an infectious disease, which generally makes its appearance in the rainy season, and therefore called burrhsaatie.[25] Once in the stable, the disorder prevails through the stud, unless timely precautions are taken to prevent them being infected—­removal from the stable is the most usual mode adopted—­so easy is the infection conveyed from one animal to the other, that if the groom of the sick horse enters the stable of the healthy they rarely escape contagion.  It is a tedious and painful disorder and in nine cases out of ten the infected animal either dies, or is rendered useless for the saddle.  The legs break out in ulcers, and, I am informed, without the greatest care on the part of the groom, he is also liable to imbibe the corruption; if he has any cut or scratch on his hands, the disease may be received as by inoculation.

The Natives have the greatest aversion to docked-tailed horses, and will never permit the animals to be shorn of the beauty with which Nature has adorned them, either in length or fulness; besides which, they think it a barbarous want of taste in those who differ from them, though they fancy Nature is improved when the long tail and mane of a beautiful white Arab are dyed with mayndhie; his legs, up to the knees, stained with the same colour, and divers stars, crescents, &c., painted on the haunches, chest, and throat of the pretty gentle creature.[26]