[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

CHAPTER X

CLIMBING SANTO PEAK

SOME days later I left Talamacco for Wora, near
Cape Cumberland, a small station of Mr. D.’s, Mr. F’s
neighbour. What struck me most there were the
wide taro fields, artificially irrigated. The system of
irrigation must date from some earlier time, for it is
difficult to believe that the population of the present
day, devoid as they are of enterprise, should have
laid it out, althOugh they are glad enough to use it.
The method employed is this: Across one of the
many streams a dam of great boulders is laid, so that
about the same amount of water is constantly kept
running into a channel. These channels are often
very long, they skirt steep slopes and are generally
cut into the earth, sometimes into the rock; some-
times a little aqueduct is built of planks, mud and
earth, supported by bamboo and other poles that
stand in the valley. In the fields the channel
usually divides into several streams, and runs through
all the flat beds, laid out in steps, in which the taro
has only to be lightly stuck to bring forth fruit in
about ten months. Taro only grows in very swampy
ground, some varieties only under water, so that it
cannot be grown in the coral region, where there is

plenty of rain, but no running water. In these
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