The picturesque boat shown in the annexed photograph (which is reproduced from "Country Life") is used in the estuary of Aveiro, Portugal, for the purpose of fishing up seaweed. As the boat moves slowly along a sort of long-handled rake is dragged along the bottom of the sea, the weed thus obtained being afterwards dried and used for manure, for which purpose it is greatly valued.
Odds and Ends.
The Man-Faced Crab—A Lady Big-Game Hunter—Cock-Fighting in Porto Rico, etc.
In some parts of the desert region of the South-Western United States, where there are no springs or streams of drinkable water, Nature has stored the precious fluid in barrel-like cactus plants, of which a good specimen is shown in the accompanying photograph. They are known botanically as Echinocactus, but English-speaking dwellers in the desert call them "barrel cactuses." Mature plants stand from two to four feet in height, with a diameter of one to one and a half feet, and weigh from fifty to a hundred pounds. When the top of one of these cylindrical plants is sliced off, the interior is found to be a mass of watery, melon-like pulp, which, when scooped out and squeezed, yields several pints of a fluid that makes a fairly palatable substitute for drinking water. The serviceableness of the Echinocactus as a source of potable water has long been known to the Indians, and the knowledge of its properties has saved the life of many a wayfarer who would otherwise have succumbed to that most awful of all fates—a lingering death from thirst.
A "BARREL CACTUS"—THE WATER FOUND INSIDE THESE DESERT PLANTS HAS SAVED MANY A TRAVELLER FROM THE TORTURES OF A LINGERING DEATH FROM THIRST.
From a Photograph.