3-021-397 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: a native ploughing in the province of Tigre, 1868. Illustration of '...the plough used by a husbandman in that country [ie Ethiopia]. This is so like what is to be seen in India that few who know the Hindoo Kate-wallah but will think that the sketch might have been made in Hindostan. But the Oriental plough has so firmly retained its primitive character from the earliest age, that it is to be found all over the East, with scarcely any difference in its construction. In the Abyssinian plough there is a very slight variation from the plough used in Hindostan. Here the handle, which the man holds, goes through the pole pulled by the oxen; it is shod with iron, and forms the share which cuts into the ground. In the Indian plough the share is a separate piece, and the handle, held by the man, is a piece of wood inserted into the end of the ox-pole; it generally stands upright. The costume of the man in this sketch is also very like that worn by such a man in India; but there is one great difference,...which is that in Abyssinia, instead of the bit of cloth (called a dhotee) being worn as it is by the Hindoo, the cloth is made into short breeches. Such is the costume of the Abyssinian peasant'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.