long trough with holes in the bottom of it, and to raise this above the
ground just so high that the pigs by lifting up their snouts could
nibble through the holes at what the trough contained. I say I thought
it an ingenious notion, and we considered how such a trough could be
made, for we could not make one of planks, and it would be a tedious
business to burn out the inside of a tree as we had done with our
vessel. But it came into my head that we could make one by moulding
clay on such a tree, which we did, and having broken a number of holes
in the clay when it was moist, we burnt it hard, and thus the trough
was finished, in much less time than the hollowing of a tree would have
taken. We put some yams into it, and made a trial of this new
contrivance, and we found it answered our expectations almost too well,
for owing to the height of the trough when we had propped it up, the
smallness of the holes, and the unwonted postures to which the pigs
were enforced, they could only eat very slowly, which must have been a
great trouble to animals accustomed to rapid gobbling of their meals.
We saw that we should have to make a special trough for the smaller
pigs, or else give them one end of the trough to themselves, for
otherwise the larger animals would never have let them eat at all; and
in the end we put up a fence between the smaller and the larger pigs,
and tilted the trough a little, so that it was lower at one extremity;
and this end also we filled with pounded bread-fruit as well as yams,
as being more fit for the younger stomachs, besides being not so hard
to get at through the holes. From the trial we made we saw that the
trough, when full, would hold enough food for three or four days, and
if we were absent longer than that, the pigs must needs sing for their
supper, as Billy said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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