“Those that remain after the proper number has been given to the farmers the breeders sell to them or to others, it being no part of their business to bring up the chickens. The fattening business is quite different. At these places there are long rows of little boxes piled up on each other into a wall five feet high. The door of each of these boxes has a hole in it through which the fowl can put its head, with a little sort of shutter that closes down on it. A fowl is placed in each box. Then the attendants go around two together; one carries a basket filled with little balls of meal, the other lifts the shutter, and as the fowl puts its head out catches it by the neck, makes it open its beak, and with his other hand pushes the ball of meal down its throat. They are so skillful that the operation takes scarce a moment; then they go on to the next, and so on down the long rows until they have fed the last of those under their charge. Then they begin again afresh.”
“Why do they keep them in the dark?” the fowler asked.
“They told us that they did it because in the dark they were not restless, and slept all the time between their meals. Then each time the flap is lifted they think it is daylight, and pop out their heads at once to see. In about ten days they get quite fat and plump, and are ready for market.”
“It seems a wonderful deal of trouble,” the fowler said. “But I suppose, as they have a fine market close at hand, and can get good prices, it pays them. It seems more reasonable to me than the hatching business. Why they should not let the fowls hatch their own eggs is more than I can imagine.”
“Fowls will lay a vastly greater number of eggs than they will hatch,” Chebron said. “A well-fed fowl should lay two hundred and fifty eggs in the year; and, left to herself, she will not hatch more than two broods of fifteen eggs in each. Thus, you see, as it pays the peasants much better to rear fowls than to sell eggs, it is to their profit to send their eggs to the hatching-places, and so to get a hundred and twenty-five chickens a year instead of thirty.”
“I suppose it does,” the fowler agreed. “But here we are, my lord, at the end of our journey. There is the point where we are to land, and your servant who hired us is standing there in readiness for you. I hope that you are satisfied with your day’s sport.”
Chebron said they had been greatly pleased, and in a few minutes the boat reached the landing-place, where Rabah was awaiting them. One of the fowlers, carrying a dozen of the finest fowl they had killed, accompanied them to the spot Rabah had chosen for the encampment. Like the last, it stood at the foot of the sandhills, a few hundred yards from the lake.
“Is the place where we are going to hunt near here?” was Chebron’s first question.
“No, my lord; it is two miles away. But, in accordance with your order last night, I have arranged for you to fish to-morrow. In the afternoon I will move the tents a mile nearer to the country where you will hunt, but it is best not to go too close, for near the edge of these great swamps the air is unhealthy to those who are not accustomed to it.”
“I long to get at the hunting,” Chebron said; “but it is better, as you say, to have the day’s fishing first, for the work would seem tame after the excitement of hunting the river-horse. We shall be glad of our dinner as soon as we can get it, for although we have done justice to the food you put on board, we are quite ready again. Twelve hours of this fresh air from the sea gives one the appetite of a hyena.”