3-021-427 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: woman grinding corn in Tigre, 1868. '...a woman grinding some kind of grain, in a house visited by our Special Artist, in the province of Tigre [in Ethiopia]. This operation is performed by rubbing the grain between two stones. The lower stone, which seems worn into a concave by long grinding, stands upon a pedestal of clay or hard mud, with a ledge all round it, and a hole, at the end of the stone, to receive the flour when ground. The seeds the woman was grinding were very small; they had first been toasted on the pan. This woman was dressed in a cotton petticoat and a leathern upper garment trimmed with two or three rows of shells or chowries. She was assisted by a blind girl, fifteen or sixteen years of age'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.