STRANGE WORLD FACTS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

STRANGE WORLD FACTS

Manners And Customs In Various Lands

"Has it rained yet?” I questioned of an English subaltern in Aden. "When I visited here some years ago, the weather man reported that none bad fallen for a hundred yearp.” “Yes,” he brightened, "seven years ago it rained for three minutes!” — Aimee Semple McPherson.

The tai which is the finest of our fish, and which we rank even above the trout, has been made the subject of a veritable cult. Pampered gourmets have it grilled quickly on one side while yet alive, and the other side is cut in slices as a raw fish. In this state it is served up—a fish salad and grilled fish in one—a drop of acid soya sauce is dropped into its eye; the pain causes it to twitch again, and while it is still moving the gourmets devour it. —Komakichi Nohara.

In Angola (a Portuguese possession in West Africa) the natives own large herds of cattle. The beasts are not killed merely for food. bi|t they are slaughtered in great numbers to provide meat for funeral feasts. The horns are mounted on poles over the graves, and if the deceased is a chief his body is sewn in ox-hide. One tribe, the Ovimbundu. of Central Angola, sever the head of a chief from the body, wrap the bead in ox-hide and preserve it for consultation. The box containing the head is fastened to a pole which is supported on the shoulders of 'two bearers. A medicine-man questions the mounted bead .concerning success in trade, or the reason for sickness or drought, and the spirit is supposed to answer by movements of the pole; these motions the medicineman can interpret.—Wilfrid D Humbly.

The Inkle lake is the second largest lake in Burma, but its claim to fame lies not in its size, which is no more than about sixteen miles long by four broad, but in the custom of its boatmen to row with their legs. From their earliest days the young children are accustomed to handling boats, so the remarkable balancing feat that legrowing involves seems to come to them as second nature. The boats are of a semi-dugout pattern, constructed of hollowed-out planks; and at each end there is a platform sloping up to two tapering points. On either of these platforms the leg rower stands and appears to balance precariously. The oar resembles that, of a ship's boat, and

the rower faces the direction in which the boat is going, with his inner foot on the extreme edge. He grips the oar with one or both hands and then twists his outer foot round it from in front. The oar thus is supported by the outside of his thigh, and the back of the calf of his leg and passes over his big toe, which is bent tip to hold it in posi- ■ tion. The stroke is made by pllinging the oar vertically into the water alongside the boat and pressing it back with the full force of the leg. At the finish of the stroke Hie rower bends inwards and makes the return of the oar with a wide outward and forward sweep of his leg. A large boat is propelled by four rowers, two at each end, who keep perfect time with movements as graceful as they' are extraordinary.—"lndian State Railways Magazine.”

The floor of the hut in the New Hebrides was roughly covered with loose coral fragments and shells. That night a subdued though continual metallic rattling caused me, flashlight in hand, to crawl from under my mos-quito-net to investigate. 1 found nothing, and. puzzled, climbed back to bed. A few minutes later the faint rattle began once more. This time I cautiously lifted the net and suddenly flashed the light across the hut. The whole floor was a moving mass of shells, clicking and clinking over the coral fragments. Then 1 realised. Almost every shell on the hut floor contained a tiny hermit-crab' They retreated into their portable homes ar the glare of the flashlight, but immediately it was extinguished their nocturnal peregrinations recommenced. Throughout the night, the eerie clink-, Ing continued: but I soon became used to it and scarcely noticed it during subsequent nights.—A. ,1. Marshall. The Calcutta pilots are the best paid in the world as the llooghly is very difficult to navigate, owing to its con-stantly-shifting sandbanks. Soundings are taken thirty times in the space of a mile, and vessels have to lake zigzag courses and oven sometimes to double back on their course —they have, so to speak, to do circus tricks. The piloting on the llooghly is coveted by the best English captains—Richard Katz.

There is a village in Wales, 3J'miles west of Bangor on the railroad to Holybead, which i$ called, “Llanfair-pwll-gwy ngy llgogerych wy rndrobwll 11 a n t.vs 11 - iogogogoch.”