More remarkable and peculiar than the huts, and equally new and interesting to us, as the most evident symptom of the great productiveness of this country, were the little stacks of corn scattered among the huts, and in reality consisting of nothing but an enormous basket made of reeds, and placed upon a scaffold of thick pieces of wood about two feet high, in order to protect the corn against the “kúsu” and the “gará” (the mouse and the ant), and covered over on the top with a thatched roof, like that of the huts.[205] Of these little corn-stacks we shall find some most interesting architectural varieties in the course of our travels. The “gará,” or white ant (_Termes fatalis_), is here the greatest nuisance, being most destructive to the corn as well as to all softer kinds of house-furniture, or rather to the houses themselves. Every possible precaution must be taken against it. The “kúsu,” or mouse, abounds here in great numbers, and of several species: particularly frequent is the jerbóa (_dipus_), which for the traveller certainly forms a very pleasant object to look at as it jumps about on the fields, but not so to the native, who is anxious about his corn. While reflecting on the feeble resistance which this kind of architecture must necessarily offer in case of conflagration, particularly as water is at so great a distance, I perceived almost opposite to this little hamlet a larger one called Mája, on the other side of the road, and shaded by some thorn-trees. From both villages the people came forth to offer cheese and Indian corn for sale. They differed widely from the fanatical people among whom we had been travelling; most of them were pagans and slaves. Their dress was mean and scanty; this of course is an expensive article in a country where no cotton is produced, and where articles of dress can only be obtained in exchange for the produce of the country. On a field near the path the Guinea corn was still lying unthreshed, though the harvest had been collected two months before. The threshing is done with long poles. The whole of Damerghú produces no durra or sorghum, but only millet or _Pennisetum typhoïdeum_, and all, as far as I know, of the white species.