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Agriculture for Economic
Development in Africa
Evidence from Ethiopia

Emelie Rohne Till

Agriculture for Economic Development in Africa
 Emelie Rohne Till

Agriculture for
Economic
Development in Africa
Evidence from Ethiopia
Emelie Rohne Till
Department of Economic History
Lund University
Lund, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-031-07900-9    ISBN 978-3-031-07901-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07901-6

© The Author(s) 2022. This book is an open access publication.

Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative
Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the book’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

I would like to gratefully acknowledge Martin Andersson, Tobias Axelsson,

Jutta Bolt, and Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt (Lund University), as well as
Christopher Cramer (SOAS University of London) and Ewout Frankema
(Wageningen University). Thank you for your helpful advice and com-
ments on chapters of this book and on my doctoral thesis, which form the
foundation for the material and research in this book.
The work was supported by research funding from the Marianne and
Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (MMW2014.0151) and Riksbankens
Jubileumsfond (P18-0603:1).

v
 Keywords

Agricultural transformation • Economic growth • Sub-Saharan Africa •

Ethiopia

vii
 Contents

Part I   1

1 Introduction 3
Aim and Contribution  4
Case Study Approach  5
References  6

2 The
 Role of Agriculture in Economic Development 9
Agriculture for Development 10
Agricultural Development 13
References 14

3 The
 Role of the State in Agricultural Development19
Agricultural Policies 21
Public Spending on Economic and Agricultural Development 22
References 24

4 Sustained
 Growth and Development in Sub-­Saharan Africa29
References 32

ix
x Contents

Part II  35

5 Case
 Study Context: Ethiopia37
Economic Context 38
Political Context 41
Policy Context 45
Agricultural Context 46
Agricultural and Economic Growth in the Twenty-First Century 49
References 53

Part III   61

6 Methodology63
Data 64
Method 68
References 72

7 SIO Multiplier Analysis77

Discussion of Results 84
References 87

8 Concluding Remarks91
References 95

Index97
 About the Author

Emelie Rohne Till, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Economic History at Lund

University, Sweden. Her main area of expertise includes the role of struc-
tural transformations in the development of low-income countries, as well
as the role of the agricultural sector in this process. Her Ph.D. thesis stud-
ied this subject through a case study of Ethiopia’s recent and rapid eco-
nomic growth and was set at the intersection of economic history and
development economics. In regards to teaching, her main fields of experi-
ence include Asian economic history, development studies, and agricul-
tural economics. Prior to receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Rohne Till worked as a
consultant at a management consultancy specialized in countries in transi-
tion in the Middle East and North Africa. This work involved both quan-
titative and qualitative research on topics such as women’s role in peace
and security, public service delivery and public administration reform, and
evaluations of humanitarian programs in the MENA region.
Dr. Rohne Till holds a Ph.D. in Economic History from Lund
University, a Master’s Degree in International Economics with a focus on
China from Lund University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Development
Studies from Lund University.

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 GDP per capita growth and population growth (annual %; left
axis) and GDP per capita (2011 constant USD, PPP; right axis).
(Source: Author’s calculation based on PWT 2020 (Feenstra
et al., 2015) and TED 2020 (The Conference Board, 2020)) 40
Fig. 5.2 Agricultural public spending as a share of total public spending,
Ethiopia and African average 1990–2018. (Source: ReSAKSS
(2021). Note: The dashed thin line represents the Maputo
commitment since 2003 to spend minimum 10%) 45
Fig. 5.3 Labor productivity growth per sector (annual % change of value
added per worker). (Source: Author’s calculation based on
World Bank (2021)) 50
Fig. 5.4 Labor productivity per sector (value added per worker in
constant 2010 US dollars). (Source: Author’s calculation based
on World Bank (2021)) 52

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 GDP growth, GDP per capita growth, total GDP, and
GDP per capita in the 20 fastest-growing SSA economies,
2000–201942
Table 5.2 Sector composition in Ethiopia, 1961–2019 (%) 51
Table 6.1 Structure (accounts) of the 2002, 2006, and 2010 SAMs 67
Table 6.2 Equation legend, values and shares 70
Table 7.1 SIO multiplier analysis 78
Table 7.2 Average share of household consumption spending by sector,
2002–2010 (%) 82
Table 7.3 Average contribution of capital and labor to total value
added by sector, 2002–2010 (%) 83

xv
PART I
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract The twenty-first century has seen the concurrent rise of

optimism about economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa and the return of
the agricultural sector to the top of the development agenda. Ethiopia—
with its rapid economic growth for two decades, achieved during a policy
focus on the agricultural sector—is at the forefront of both these
developments. This chapter introduces the book’s main theme of the role
of agriculture in economic development, which is addressed based on a
case study of Ethiopia.

Keywords Economic development • Agricultural-led growth •

Sub-­Saharan Africa • Ethiopia

The twenty-first century has seen increased optimism about the prospects
for African economic development, and the oft-cited The Economist cover
of 2000 depicting Africa as a “hopeless continent” has long seemed obso-
lete. Ethiopia, with its average annual GDP per capita growth of over 6%
since the turn of the millennium (IMF, 2020), is at the forefront of the
current wave of optimism. The country’s rapid growth has been achieved
under a policy focus on the agricultural sector—another aspect of develop-
ment that has seen a renewed wave of optimism in the twenty-first century.
After two decades of neglect in the 1980s and 1990s, the role of the agri-
cultural sector in economic development has again risen to the top of the

© The Author(s) 2022 3

E. Rohne Till, Agriculture for Economic Development in Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07901-6_1
4 E. ROHNE TILL

development agenda for many scholars, policymakers, and donors. This

background forms the starting point of this book, which studies Ethiopia’s
rapid—but so far relatively short—growth during the implementation of
the macro-level development policy “agricultural development-led indus-
trialization” (ADLI), first established in the early 1990s. The research uses
the Ethiopian experience as a case to study the role of the agricultural sec-
tor in economic growth in low-income countries.
Based on its research the book makes two main arguments: first, that
the agricultural sector remains an important engine of growth in low-­
income countries; and second, that there is scope for states in contempo-
rary low-income countries to take a leading role in the transformation of
the agricultural sector on the path toward long-term economic growth.
These arguments synthesize the research which is presented in three main
parts in the book. The book’s first part discusses the role of agriculture in
economic development from a theoretical perspective, as well as the role
that can be played by the state to foster agricultural development and the
recent development experience in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The second
part of the book elaborates on the context of the case study, in terms of
the economic, political, and agricultural context of Ethiopia. The third
and last part covers the book’s empirical investigation. Based on a method
of Semi-Input-Output multiplier analysis (SIO), the book estimates the
Ethiopian agricultural sector’s contribution to aggregate growth through
its linkages with other sectors. This analysis reveals that agricultural growth
has been central to the aggregate growth given Ethiopia’s economic struc-
ture, validating the central hypothesis derived from the first part of the
book on the important role that agriculture can play in economic
development.

Aim and Contribution

This research aims to use Ethiopia’s recent experience of rapid growth as
a case to explore whether agricultural-led growth is happening in a coun-
try in SSA today and to understand if this can be a path toward long-term
economic growth. Agricultural-led growth is understood as a process in
which agricultural growth due to increased agricultural productivity
(which, in turn, stems from increased public investment combined with
technological advancements) stimulates aggregate growth. In this process,
agricultural growth both generates a surplus to fuel the aggregate
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

economy and increases farmers’ incomes, generating demand for locally

produced products. This understanding of the link between agricultural
growth and economic growth draws explicitly on Adelman’s (1984) defi-
nition of “agricultural demand-led growth” (ADLI) and generally on the
broader agriculture-for-development perspective, as outlined in the World
Development Report 2008 (World Bank, 2007). Implicitly, the research
also aims to generate insights that can be used to draw lessons for other
contemporary low-income countries in SSA, although any such lessons
must be drawn with caution and consideration for each country’s specific
context.
With these aims in mind, the book’s main topics of interest are the role
of the agricultural sector in economic growth in today’s low-income coun-
tries, as well as the role of the state in both agricultural and economic
growth. These topics are explored through theoretical discussions and
through an empirical case study of Ethiopia’s agricultural and economic
growth, mainly from the 1990s onward. The case study focuses on
Ethiopia’s recent economic history during a time of significant economic
change and attempts to do so in the context of longer trajectories in the
history of the Ethiopian economy.
This work contributes to the previous literature by lending support to
the large body of work arguing that the agricultural sector is important for
initial economic growth in low-income countries. It adds to the existing
literature by specifically focusing on one relevant case. Given its rapid eco-
nomic growth, achieved under a policy focus on agriculture, large size,
and political importance, the case of Ethiopia is an important contribution
to the debate.

Case Study Approach

The book adopts a case study approach primarily based on national-level
data. As discussed by Alston (2008), macro-level case studies can be use-
ful inroads toward developing an understanding of both the determi-
nants and consequences of economic change. The country-specific
approach is justified by the difficulty of generating insightful results
through multi-­country or continent-wide approaches, which are limited
by the diversity among nations. All countries pursuing economic devel-
opment have a unique point of departure in terms of physical endow-
ments, social and political settings, and historical context. Moreover,
6 E. ROHNE TILL

development outcomes often vary even among countries that share some
of these characteristics (Nayyar, 2018). The macro-level, national
approach is most appropriate for the sectoral-level interest in the role of
the agricultural sector in economic change. In addition, the data that is
needed for this question is mostly available at the national level. Finally,
both agricultural and economic growth are affected by institutional and
economic policies, which are determined at the national level (Lains &
Pinilla, 2009).
The case study of Ethiopia is not intended to be interpreted as a
representative case for the broader SSA experience. Instead, it is intended
to be a careful, country-specific study that considers Ethiopia’s specific
conditions to shed light on its particular development outcomes. Ethiopia
is studied for its own sake, neither as a representative nor as an outlier. On
the one hand, Ethiopia has some high-level similarities with other coun-
tries in SSA; the country is poor, largely rural, has experienced economic
and agricultural growth, and has undergone a slow structural transforma-
tion toward manufacturing since the turn of the millennium. On the other
hand, there are also differences, such as Ethiopia’s large population, rela-
tive population density in certain areas, different historical experiences of
colonization, and long history of state formation. Neither the unifying nor
the distinguishing traits are strong enough for Ethiopia to be seen as either
representative of or distinct from the SSA experience. Instead, Ethiopia is
chosen because its experience of agricultural and economic growth coin-
ciding with a policy focus on the agricultural sector makes it a suitable case
for the main research interest: the role of the agricultural sector in eco-
nomic growth in a contemporary low-income country.

References
Adelman, I. (1984). Beyond Export-Led Growth. World Development,
12(9), 937–949.
Alston, L. (2008). The ‘Case’ for Case Studies in New Institutional Economics. In
E. Brousseau & J. M. Glachant (Eds.), New Institutional Economics: A
Guidebook. Cambridge University Press.
IMF (International Monetary Fund). (2020). World Economic Outlook Database,
October 2020. IMF. Retrieved December 31, 2020, from https://www.imf.
org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-­database/2020/October
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Lains, P., & Pinilla, V. (2009). Introduction. In P. Lains & V. Pinilla (Eds.),
Agriculture and Economic Development in Europe Since 1870. Routledge.
Nayyar, D. (2018). Rethinking Asian Drama. WIDER Working Paper, No.
2018/150. The United Nations University World Institute for Development
Economics Research, Helsinki.
World Bank. (2007). World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development.
The World Bank.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
 CHAPTER 2

The Role of Agriculture in Economic

Development

Abstract The book’s main research focus is the role of the agricultural
sector in economic development. This chapter discusses the main theoreti-
cal underpinnings of this role based on the extensive body of literature on
this subject. The chapter covers both the role of agriculture for economic
development and the development of the agricultural sector itself with a
focus on the macro-level drivers of agricultural development.

Keywords ADLI • Agriculture for development • Agricultural

development

The book’s core research focus is to understand the role that the
agricultural sector can play in economic development as well as the role of
the agricultural transformation in the broader processes of economic and
structural transformation. These processes involve the sectoral shift of out-
put and employment away from low-productive agriculture into more
productive activities. They are generally accompanied by a greater diversi-
fication of livelihoods both on- and off-farm, stronger rural and urban
interaction, and the creation of more employment and investment oppor-
tunities outside the agricultural sector (Mellor, 1976; Timmer, 1988;
Jayne et al., 2018).

© The Author(s) 2022 9

E. Rohne Till, Agriculture for Economic Development in Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07901-6_2
10 E. ROHNE TILL

Agriculture for Development

Agricultural and development economics both emerged as sub-fields in
the middle of the twentieth century (Arndt, 1987; Barrett et al., 2010).
Since then, the view of the role that agriculture can play in economic
development has shifted over time. Early perspectives in the 1950s and
1960s emphasize a largely passive role of the agricultural sector (Lewis,
1954; Hirschman, 1958; Ranis & Fei, 1961; Jorgenson, 1961). In this
view, agriculture’s contribution to development is to reallocate labor and
indirectly contribute to much-needed savings and investments in the
modern sector; the sector was mainly regarded as a reservoir of labor and
transferable surplus. This was followed by research that further down-
played the role of agriculture in economic development based on the core
concept of the Prebisch–Singer thesis, suggesting deteriorating terms of
trade for primary products in relation to industrial goods (Singer, 1950;
Prebisch, 1959; Preobrazhensky, 1965).
The mid-1960s saw a shift toward viewing agriculture as a potential
engine of growth. This change in perspective followed the contributions
of Johnston and Mellor (1961) on how agriculture can contribute to
growth in the overall economy through various linkages (labor, food, for-
eign exchange, market, and domestic savings). In the 1980s, the view
shifted again, this time toward an industrial focus. This tendency was fol-
lowed by several studies in the 1990s and early 2000s, arguing that agri-
cultural growth stems from, rather than leads to, overall growth (Estudillo
& Otsuka, 1999; Gardner, 2000; Mundlak et al., 2004). However, since
around 2005, the view that agricultural growth can drive overall growth
has resurfaced. This perspective is exemplified by the 2008 World
Development Report on agriculture (World Bank, 2007) and the signing
of the Maputo Declaration in 2003, in which all African leaders of state
committed to dedicating at least 10% of public spending to agriculture
(AGRA, 2018).
Four main theoretical schools of thought can be identified as having
influenced the shifting debate outlined above (see Andersson & Rohne
Till, 2018 for an elaborated discussion). First, according to the “fifth
wheel” school, agriculture is not by itself seen to stimulate economic
development, although it might stifle the process if neglected (Lewis,
1954; Ranis & Fei, 1961; Jorgenson, 1961). Second, the Chicago school
emphasizes rationality and anti-distortions, led by the work of Schultz
(1964) and his followers (e.g., Krueger et al., 1988, 1991; Anderson,
 2 THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 11

2009a, 2009b). The third main school of thought focuses on the role of
agriculture in trade; agriculture is seen as either a break (Prebisch, 1959)
or an injection (Myint, 1958). The fourth school of thought views agricul-
ture as a potential driver of growth. One strand of this diverse school of
thought has its roots in structural change analysis, understanding the rela-
tive decline of agriculture in the process of long-term economic growth
(Clark, 1940; Kuznets, 1961, 1966; Chenery & Syrquin, 1975). A related
strand emphasizes agricultural growth’s potential to strengthen the
domestic market, thereby stimulating aggregate growth. Adelman (1984)
explicitly theorizes this mechanism in her development of the concept of
agricultural demand-led industrialization (ADLI).
The agriculture-for-development view has been a prominent perspective
on the role of agriculture in economic growth since around 2005. While
agriculture’s role in stimulating growth and reducing poverty has also
been questioned during this time (Ashley & Maxwell, 2001; Hasan &
Quibria, 2004; Ellis, 2004; Collier & Dercon, 2009), agriculture’s contri-
bution to economic growth has much support in the economic history of
today’s high-income countries in Europe and East Asia (Ohkawa &
Rosovsky, 1960; Bairoch, 1973; Johnston & Kilby, 1975; Timmer, 1988;
Lains & Pinilla, 2009). A core assumption of the agriculture-for-­
development perspective is that farmers in low-income countries, often
working small plots, can be efficient producers capable of generating a
surplus that can benefit the wider economy (Mellor, 1976; Lipton, 2005;
World Bank, 2007; Diao et al., 2010). As such, increasing the productivity
of these small farmers is a key concern. In addition to increases in agricul-
tural productivity among farmers, a thriving rural nonfarm sector and
diversification toward higher-productivity crops are also important ele-
ments of success. However, while the rural nonfarm sector can be a pro-
ductive outlet, it is also a very diverse sector, including petty and
under-capitalized activities with very low returns to labor and also produc-
tive activities that are better rewarded. The nature of the sector is likely
linked to the dynamism of agriculture and the general economy (Wiggins
et al., 2018).
The concept of ADLI is of special importance for the current research,
given the connection between Adelman’s academic concept of ADLI and
Ethiopia’s implementation of ADLI. Drawing on Singer (1979), Adelman
(1984) developed ADLI as a development strategy emphasizing the
importance of agricultural growth in stimulating overall production and
growth. Under ADLI, agricultural growth arising from increased
12 E. ROHNE TILL

agricultural productivity (stemming, in turn, from increased rural invest-

ment and technological innovation) stimulates aggregate growth; agricul-
tural growth increases farmers’ incomes, which generates demand for
locally produced non-tradable products. This farm demand for domestic
non-­tradables is the main link between agricultural growth (raising farm-
ers’ incomes) and nonagricultural growth.
Empirically, ADLI was first tested in Adelman’s (1984) seminal paper,
in which she simulated growth scenarios comparing an export-led (in
essence, manufacturing-led) industrialization strategy and ADLI, for
South Korea in 1963. She found that while both strategies would generate
growth, ADLI would lead to better overall development compared to
export-led growth, as ADLI led to higher labor absorption, more equal
distribution of income, less poverty, and a higher rate of per capita eco-
nomic growth (Adelman, 1984, p. 939). These results mainly stemmed
from the linkages generated by the agricultural sector that were stronger
than those generated outside of agriculture, as farm households demanded
more goods and services from domestic food and nonfood industries than
other households. In the simulations, the same amount of investment was
channeled into the export sector or the agricultural sector. This led
Adelman to conclude that ADLI at some stages of development both gen-
erated better economic development and yielded a higher rate of return,
and should therefore be prioritized. Other studies that have explicitly
tested ADLI include Vogel (1994) and Bautista et al. (1999). Moreover,
much of the work on calculating agricultural multipliers and linkages (as
summarized by Haggblade et al., 2007) shares a similar rationale as
Adelman’s study. Overall, this literature finds that an ADLI strategy can
contribute considerably to overall economic growth.
Adelman’s ADLI strategy was intended to be an alternative development
strategy for low-income countries. However, Adelman did not claim that
ADLI was always the right choice for this type of countries. Instead, the
strategy mainly targets countries that have (1) a potentially large domestic
market and (2) an industrial base with established supply responsiveness.
Adelman and Vogel (1991) explored the implications of these criteria for
successful ADLI implementation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). They found
that while agriculture has relatively strong linkages in SSA, most countries
do not fulfill the second criteria of established supply responsiveness
(because the manufacturing production capacity is quite limited, many
types of consumer goods are not produced domestically, and most
intermediates and machinery are imported). Therefore, they concluded
 2 THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 13

that an ADLI strategy was unlikely to be successful in most SSA contexts.

Thirty years later, it seems that the Ethiopian implementation of ADLI
may be proving their pessimistic predictions wrong.

Agricultural Development
As the realization of agriculture for development depends on agricultural
growth, this section provides a brief contextualization of the literature on
agricultural development. The literature on the drivers and features of
agricultural change is vast, and much important work has been done on
the subject in the post-war era (Barrett et al., 2010). In general, the
macro-level conditions needed for agricultural development are well-­
known: a reasonably stable macro-economic and political environment,
effective technology transfer, and product and factor markets that are
functional and accessible (Mosher, 1966; Tsakok, 2011). However, these
insights do not allow for a specific understanding of how on-the-ground,
micro-level change is engendered. Agriculture is, in essence, a private
activity undertaken by millions of individual actors (Mellor, 2018).
Therefore, village-level studies and analyses of localized production sys-
tems are needed to get closer to an understanding of what drives agricul-
tural production and productivity increases (Wiggins, 2000; Andersson
Djurfeldt & Djurfeldt, 2013).
However, while agriculture is a predominantly private activity taking
place at the micro-level, the success of individual farmers is conditioned by
public and macro-level forces. Agricultural growth—and its potential ben-
efits—depends on favorable developments in the economic and political
environment, technology transfer, and product and factor markets. The
literature on what drives these conditions is large, and at least four major
drivers are proposed in the literature: factor relations (Binswanger &
Ruttan, 1978; Hayami & Ruttan, 1971, 1985), population dynamics
(Boserup, 1965), technology availability (Otsuka & Kijima, 2010;
Estudillo & Otsuka, 2013; Otsuka & Muraoka, 2017), and the state
(Djurfeldt et al., 2005; Hazell, 2009; Henley, 2012; Frankema, 2014).
This book is particularly concerned with the strand of the literature on
macro-level agricultural development concerning the role of the state, as
elaborated on in Chap. 3. However, this focus should not be seen as a
quest to identify one single driver of agricultural growth. Such a quest
would be futile, as the process is much too complex, and multiple factors
both drive growth and affect each other. The macro-level forces of
14 E. ROHNE TILL

agricultural change are not substitutes; in any context of agricultural

change, the state, factor and product markets, technology, and population
dynamics are complements that act and react in the same environment.

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 CHAPTER 3

The Role of the State in Agricultural

Development

Abstract This chapter discusses the potential role that the state can play
in agricultural development. It does so in three main parts. First, it dis-
cusses the role of the state in agricultural development from a theoretical
perspective. Second, it explores how the state can use agricultural policies
to play this role. Third and lastly, it specifically explores the role that poli-
cies on agricultural public spending can play in agricultural development.

Keywords Agricultural policies • Agricultural productivity •

Agricultural public spending

One strand of literature on the role of the state in macro-level agricultural

development views agricultural development as the result of a created sup-
portive economic and policy environment upheld by substantial public
spending on agricultural development (Djurfeldt et al., 2005; Hazell,
2009; Henley, 2012; Frankema, 2014). The policy recommendation
derived from this work includes for governments to take a leading role in
providing necessary technology, an economic and political environment
conducive to growth, and substantial public spending on infrastructure,
irrigation, and research (Eicher, 1995; Hazell, 2009; Rashid et al., 2013).
The important role of the state is also prominent in the broader debate
on the role of agriculture in economic development. For example, Tsakok
(2011, pp. 254, 302) argues that the role of governments is essential to

© The Author(s) 2022 19

E. Rohne Till, Agriculture for Economic Development in Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07901-6_3
20 E. ROHNE TILL

agricultural and economic development. Similarly, Mellor (2017, p. 11)

holds that the agricultural sector must modernize in order for an economy
to transform, and states must play a central role in this modernization
(Mellor, 2017, p. 11). The critique of the state-led interpretation of agri-
cultural development mainly draws on the observation that past state
involvement has in no way guaranteed success. Historically, the world has
seen much higher levels of state intervention in agriculture in the post-war
era, but this may have done more harm than good to global agricultural
production (Federico, 2005; Pinilla, 2019).
Views concerning the appropriate role of the state in agricultural
development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have varied over the decades. In
the 1960s and 1970s, many scholars, donors, and policymakers considered
the state to play a large and important role. However, the translation of
the large role of the state into successful agricultural development was
largely unsuccessful. While many governments (e.g., those of Kenya,
Tanzania, Nigeria, and Ethiopia) implemented comprehensive programs
for agricultural development, many such programs turned out to be com-
plete failures. However, despite these uneven or disappointing results, the
state was seen as central to both agricultural and economic development
under this paradigm. It played this role through the implementation of
land reforms; investing in agricultural research and development (R&D),
irrigation schemes, and rural development programs; and providing access
to inputs and credit (Holmén, 2005; De Janvry, 2010; Henley, 2012;
Otsuka & Larson, 2013).
With the new paradigm of the 1980s under the Washington Consensus,
the role of the state in agricultural development shrunk dramatically. The
period’s stabilization and adjustment policies reduced the size and func-
tions of the state in agriculture. During this period, public spending on
agriculture and aid to the agricultural sector declined sharply, and many
public agencies supporting agricultural development were dismantled (De
Janvry, 2010). As we know in hindsight, the hopes that the private sector
would successfully fill the vacuum left by the public withdrawal went
largely unfulfilled. Instead, this void of institutional support for agricul-
ture was only partially—and unsuccessfully—replaced by the private sector
and NGOs in the 1990s (Staatz & Eicher, 1998).
However, the last 15 years have seen a strong re-emergence of the role
of agriculture in economic development. The period has also seen a rise of
attention toward the role of the state in agricultural development, with a
 3 THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 21

larger role for the state in the theory and, in some cases, practice of agri-
cultural development (Crawford et al., 2003; Coady & Fan, 2008; De
Janvry, 2010).

Agricultural Policies
The return of agriculture, and especially smallholder-based agriculture, to
the development agenda since around 2005 is based on the view that
smallholders can be efficient producers and that productivity increases
among this group lead to both economic growth and poverty reduction.
Following this line of thinking, increasing agricultural productivity (espe-
cially among smallholders) is a key policy concern (Dorward et al., 2004;
Diao et al., 2010). As early stage agricultural development often suffers
from various market failures—arising from challenges to economies of
scale, access to credit and information, and the inherent climate and mar-
ket volatility of agricultural production—public policies that support small
farmers seek to overcome these challenges (Dorward et al., 2004; Birner
& Resnick, 2010). Given this goal, agricultural policies have shifted con-
siderably in the post-2005 era compared to the heavy taxation of the sec-
tor in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, and perhaps especially since the
Maputo Declaration of 2003, the discrimination against the agricultural
sector has decreased in favor of supporting the sector (Anderson, 2009;
Wiggins, 2018).
There are many areas in which the state can intervene in the agricultural
sector. These include policies on the ownership of production factors,
public spending on general public goods (health, information, etc.), agri-
cultural public spending, transfers from farmers (taxation), interventions
in the domestic market of agricultural products and factors, and interven-
tions in the international trade of agricultural products (Federico, 2005,
p. 187). Among these, the role of agricultural public spending may be of
particular importance. Such importance of agricultural spending is in line
with the importance that has been assigned to agricultural public spending
in previous agricultural transformations (Johnson et al., 2003; Wiggins,
2014; Mogues et al., 2015) and the renewed emphasis on its centrality to
agricultural development in SSA, especially following the Maputo
Declaration of 2003 (Diao et al., 2008; AGRA, 2018; De Janvry &
Sadoulet, 2019). Agricultural public spending is also the main channel of
state involvement in agricultural development in Ethiopia. Indeed,
22 E. ROHNE TILL

agricultural public spending is one of the key policies for agricultural

development outlined in the government’s agricultural development-led
industrialization (ADLI) strategy (MOFED, 2002).

Public Spending on Economic and Agricultural Development

Historically, the theory and practice concerning the role of public spending
in development have fluctuated widely. Many nineteenth-century
economists viewed public spending as a vital instrument for economic
development. Fueled by the expanded military during the World Wars, the
New Deal-type welfare programs, the policy approach of Keynesianism,
and, somewhat later, the important role of public spending in East Asian
countries’ rapid industrialization, this remained a dominant theoretical
perspective until around the 1970s (Lee, 2007). However, the global eco-
nomic slowdown and rise of the Reagan–Thatcher era challenged the
Keynesian theoretical support for public spending; the laissez-faire school,
arguing that public expenditure crowded out private investment, gained
ground (Little, 1982; Rodrik, 1999). In light of the general “lost decades”
in the wake of small public spending in the 1980s and 1990s, the theoreti-
cal position on public spending has softened, and there is a broader recog-
nition of the essential role public spending can play in complementing
private sector investments. More recent discussions have emphasized
states’ capability in executing effective public spending and have broad-
ened the theoretical understanding of public expenditure to include insti-
tutional and capacity aspects (Coady & Fan, 2008; Tijani et al., 2015).
This theoretical re-orientation away from the “small state” paradigm of
the 1980s is also reflected in practice, as Yu et al. (2015) find that public
spending increased significantly from 1980 to 2010 for the 147 countries
in their study.
The main theoretical rationale for public spending is two-fold, including
both efficiency considerations and equity considerations. According to the
efficiency consideration, the government is superior at providing public
goods, which private actors will underprovide. This, in turn, enhances
market efficiency and remedies market failures caused by public good
issues, risks, externalities, information asymmetries, regulation and coor-
dination issues, and other factors (Myles, 1995; Hindriks & Myles, 2006;
Coady & Fan, 2008; Mogues et al., 2015). Accordingly, this school of
thought argues that public spending on public goods usually pays off,
while public spending on private goods usually does not. Second, the
 3 THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 23

equity rationale concerns the distribution of goods and services in terms

of its effect on the welfare of the poorest segments of the population and
on the gap between the best- and worst-off segments of the society
(Mogues et al., 2015).
The efficiency and equity rationales are also central to the theoretical
discussion of agricultural public spending in particular. Although agricul-
ture is a largely private activity, its success is conditioned by public goods
such as human capacity, infrastructure, and R&D; as such, the efficiency
consideration is theoretically applicable (Tijani et al., 2015; Mellor, 2017).
The equity rationale is also frequently evoked in the discussion on agricul-
tural public spending, as the agricultural sector is often home to the most
impoverished segments of a population.
Taken together, the efficiency and equity rationales for public spending
suggest a rather optimistic view of what governments can achieve via pub-
lic spending. These theoretical notions position governments as “benevo-
lent social spenders” that act benevolently and efficiently. However, a large
political economy literature suggests that this view must be tempered, as
government officials act in accordance with other incentives and con-
straints rather than purely economic ones (e.g., those provided by citizens,
voters, government officials, and lobby groups) (Mogues et al., 2015).
The previous research on the relationship between agricultural public
spending and economic development has not established a causal connec-
tion (Easterly & Rebelo, 1993; Milbourne et al., 2003; Mogues, 2011),
but instead suggests that this relationship depends on the spending’s func-
tional type. The main types of agricultural public spending are (1) spend-
ing allocated toward increased agricultural productivity, such as irrigation,
rural infrastructure, agricultural R&D, or extension (farmer education to
disseminate modern practices and inputs) and (2) supportive functions for
the agricultural sector such as rural safety nets and input subsidies. These
spending types can have very different effects on the agricultural sector.
Overall, the large body of evidence on the allocation of agricultural public
spending suggests that investing in both physical and human public goods
can have positive effects on agricultural growth. Investment in private
goods seems to have a more limited effect on growth, although it may
contribute to rural welfare (for useful summaries, see Mogues et al.,
2012, 2015).
While increased agricultural productivity is a cornerstone of the
agriculture-­for-development perspective, most observers recognize that
not all farmers can “grow themselves out of poverty” (World Bank, 2007).
24 E. ROHNE TILL

For farmers in marginal areas (in terms of market access or agro-ecological

conditions), stimulating the agricultural sector may not spur poverty
reduction. Moreover, some studies find that increased commercialization
is not linked to improvements in food security (Andersson Djurfeldt,
2017). As such, spending on safety nets and cash transfers may be a better
use of rural and agricultural public spending, than only spending on agri-
cultural productivity enhancement (Masters et al., 2013). Such social pro-
tection may increase multiplier effects and encourage local food
consumption in the rural economy (Wiggins et al., 2018). However, while
the link between increased agricultural productivity and poverty reduction
is not direct in all contexts, virtually all instances of mass poverty reduction
in modern history have been ignited by increased productivity among
small farms (Lipton, 2005).
As a concluding remark in the discussion of the role of the state in
agricultural development, this book operates under the assumption that
the state matters—and it matters what a government does or does not do.
This is reflective of a Hirschmanian view of development: development is
the result of what actors in a country do and the results of these actions
(Hirschman, 1971; Cramer et al., 2020). While we should acknowledge
the weight of history, choices about development must be made in the
present, and governments are one important actor making such choices.

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 3 THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 27

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 CHAPTER 4

Sustained Growth and Development

in Sub-­Saharan Africa

Abstract Ethiopia is one of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

that has experienced rapid economic growth in the twenty-first century.
This chapter explores the underpinnings of the economic transformation
that many countries in SSA have experienced, focusing on the aspects of
structural transformation, poverty reduction, and the nature of agricul-
tural growth.

Keywords Structural transformation • Poverty reduction •

Sub-­Saharan Africa

Currently, many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are in the midst of an

economic transformation. While challenges remain and progress is uneven
across countries and regions, a large and growing body of evidence sug-
gests that many parts of SSA have undergone profound economic change
since the early 2000s. This economic growth has taken place within an
improved political and macro-economic environment and in the context
of rising global commodity prices. It has been accompanied by rapid agri-
cultural growth (in some countries), growing rural off-farm employment,
and strong local and foreign investment (Frankema & van Waijenburg,
2018; Jayne et al., 2018).
However, two decades into this transformation, a key question is
whether these developments will last or whether this is a boom period that

© The Author(s) 2022 29

E. Rohne Till, Agriculture for Economic Development in Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07901-6_4
30 E. ROHNE TILL

will—again—be followed by a bust. As noted by many (Jerven, 2010;

Frankema & van Waijenburg, 2012; Broadberry & Gardner, 2019), this is
not the first time that parts of SSA have seen an extended growth period.
The 1950s and 1960s saw widespread optimism concerning growth pros-
pects in SSA, but this optimism waned as growth performance deterio-
rated. Will this time be different? Some are skeptical, warning that the
current growth is volatile and vulnerable because it is driven by commod-
ity exports and foreign direct investment and not accompanied by indus-
trialization, structural transformation, or poverty reduction (Gollin et al.,
2016; Fioramonti, 2017). Any effort to understand whether the current
growth episode will last must take these concerns seriously, especially as
they relate to the rate of poverty reduction, its relationship with structural
transformation, and the nature of agricultural growth.
To date, the economic growth across SSA seems to have had but a
modest effect on poverty reduction. While many countries have seen a
reduction in relative poverty, absolute poverty levels have not decreased,
as population growth has offset the improvements. Instead, the rapid
growth has been accompanied by disappointing poverty reductions and
welfare gains in many countries (Cheru et al., 2019). SSA’s high eco-
nomic growth without broad-based welfare gains is not a historical
anomaly; in today’s high-income countries, there has generally been a
lag from growth to broad-based development (Frankema & van
Waijenburg, 2018).
In order for growth to have a substantial impact on poverty, it must be
accompanied by a structural transformation based on the transfer of labor
from low- to high-productivity sectors and on labor productivity growth.
The historical evidence suggests that all countries that have transformed
into high-income countries have experienced structural transformation
(Kuznets, 1966; Chenery & Syrquin, 1975) and that achieving such trans-
formation is the only sustainable pathway out of poverty (Barrett et al.,
2010). Historically, the transfer of labor from low- to high-productivity
sectors has implied a transfer from the agricultural sector to the manufac-
turing sector. However, this clear sectoral boundary may now be blurring
with the rise of high-productivity agricultural and service activities (Cheru
et al., 2019).
The structural transformation links to the third aspect of the
sustainability of the current growth process: the nature of agricultural
growth. A key concern about the sustainability of the current growth
 4 SUSTAINED GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 31

episode is whether it is merely driven by the export of cash crops (or, in

some cases, minerals) and favorable terms of trade. If so, the episode
would share similarities with the previous growth episode in the 1950s
and 1960s, which ultimately was not sustained. Instead, broad-based,
inclusive growth that benefits large segments of society is necessary for
sustained growth (Andersson & Andersson, 2019). The limited success in
increasing agricultural productivity and achieving an agricultural
transformation in many African countries has led some researchers to
question whether agriculture can generate sufficient growth to play a
leading role in African development (Collier & Dercon, 2009, 2014;
Dercon & Gollin, 2014). Several aspects of the transformative power of
agricultural growth are questioned, including its efficacy in reducing
poverty (Hasan & Quibria, 2004), whether it is a typical precursor of
development (Ellis, 2004), and its ability to have strong growth linkages
in today’s globalized world (Hart, 1998). However, as Diao et al. (2010)
show through the economy-wide modeling of six African countries, there
is little evidence to suggest that contemporary low-income countries can
bypass broad-based agricultural transformation in order to achieve
successful and sustained economic transformation.
While it is well beyond this book (and most social scientists) to predict
the economic future of any one country, certain elements can indicate
whether a growth process is likely to be sustained or not based on histori-
cal experience. If growth is accompanied by structural change, a successful
agricultural transformation, and welfare gains for a large part of the popu-
lation, it is more likely to be sustained (Kuznets, 1966; Barrett et al.,
2010; Valdés & Foster, 2010). This also applies to contemporary low-­
income countries in SSA. While some work on economic development in
SSA engages in “African exceptionalism,” this book sees no reason to con-
sider the African continent as different from the rest of the world (for a
discussion of this issue, see Cramer et al., 2020). All the countries in SSA
are on their own development paths, as were all contemporary high-­
income countries. Some of the challenges of contemporary low-income
countries are similar to those that today’s high-income countries once
faced, while others are unique to the current era. Nevertheless, as other
parts of the world have achieved sustained economic growth once the
right obstacles were removed and a sufficiently permissive environment
was created, so could contemporary low-income countries in SSA.
32 E. ROHNE TILL

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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
mysterious look. The sun lights up some softer grassy ravine or
green slope, and then displays splintered rocks rising in the wildest
confusion. Often long lines of white clouds lie along the line of
mountain-summits, while at other times every white peak and
precipice-wall is distinctly marked against the deep-blue sky. The
valley-plain is especially striking in clear mornings and evenings,
where it lies partly in golden sunlight, partly in the shadow of its
great hills.
The green mosaic of the level land is intersected by many streams,
canals or lakes, or beautiful reaches of river which look like small
lakes. The lakes have floating islands composed of vegetation.
Besides the immense chúnárs and elms, and the long lines of stately
poplars, great part of the plain is a garden filled with fruits and
flowers, and there is almost constant verdure.

“There eternal summer dwells,

And west winds, with musky wing,
About the cedar’d alleys fling
Nard and cassia’s balmy smells.”

Travel, Adventure and Sport from Blackwood’s Magazine

(Edinburgh and London), Vol. vi.
 THE LAKE OF PITCH
(TRINIDAD)
CHARLES KINGSLEY
This Pitch Lake should be counted among the wonders of the world;
for it is, certainly, tolerably big. It covers ninety-nine acres, and
contains millions of tons of so-called pitch.
Its first discoverers were not bound to see that a pitch lake of
ninety-nine acres was no more wonderful than any of the little pitch
wells—“spues” or “galls,” as we should call them in Hampshire—a
yard across; or any one of the tiny veins and lumps of pitch which
abound in the surrounding forests; and no less wonderful than if it
had covered ninety-nine thousand acres instead of ninety-nine.
As we neared the shore, we perceived that the beach was black with
pitch; and the breeze being off the land, the asphalt smell (not
unpleasant) came off to welcome us. We rowed in, and saw in front
of a little row of wooden houses, a tall mulatto, in blue policeman’s
dress, gesticulating and shouting to us. He was the ward policeman,
and I found him (as I did all the coloured police) able and courteous,
shrewd and trusty. These police are excellent specimens of what can
be made of the Negro, or Half-Negro, if he be but first drilled, and
then given a responsibility which calls out his self-respect. He was
warning our crew not to run aground on one or other of the pitch
reefs, which here take the place of rocks. A large one, a hundred
yards off on the left, has been almost all dug away, and carried to
New York or to Paris to make asphalt pavement.
The boat was run ashore, under his directions, on a spit of sand
between the pitch; and when she ceased bumping up and down in
the muddy surf, we scrambled out into a world exactly the hue of its
inhabitants—of every shade, from jet-black to copper-brown. The
pebbles on the shore were pitch. A tide-pool close by was enclosed
in pitch: a four-eyes was swimming about in it, staring up at us; and
when we hunted him, tried to escape, not by diving, but by jumping
on shore on the pitch, and scrambling off between our legs. While
the policeman, after profoundest courtesies, was gone to get a
mule-cart to take us up to the lake, and planks to bridge its water-
channels, we took a look round at this oddest of the corners of the
earth.
In front of us was the unit of civilization—the police-station, wooden
on wooden stilts (as all well-built houses are here), to ensure a
draught of air beneath them. We were, of course, asked to come
and sit down, but preferred looking around, under our umbrellas; for
the heat was intense. The soil is half pitch, half brown earth, among
which the pitch sweals in and out, as tallow sweals from a candle. It
is always in slow motion under the heat of the tropic sun: and no
wonder if some of the cottages have sunk right and left in such a
treacherous foundation. A stone or brick house could not stand here:
but wood and palm-thatch are both light and tough enough to be
safe, let the ground give way as it will.
The soil, however, is very rich. The pitch certainly does not injure
vegetation, though plants will not grow actually in it. The first plants
which caught our eyes were pine-apples; for which La Brea is
famous. The heat of the soil, as well as of the air, brings them to
special perfection. They grow about anywhere, unprotected by
hedge or fence; for the Negroes here seem honest enough, at least
towards each other. And at the corner of the house was a bush
worth looking at, for we had heard of it for many a year. It bore
prickly, heart-shaped pods an inch long, filled with seeds coated with
a rich waxy pulp.
This was a famous plant—Bixa, Orellana, Roucou; and that pulp was
the well-known Arnotta dye of commerce. In England and Holland, it
is used merely, I believe, to colour cheeses; but in the Spanish Main,
to colour human beings. As we went onward up the gentle slope
(the rise is one hundred and thirty-eight feet in rather more than a
mile), the ground became more and more full of pitch, and the
vegetation poorer and more rushy, till it resembled on the whole,
that of an English fen. An Ipomœa or two, and a scarlet-flowered
dwarf Heliconia kept up the tropic type as does a stiff brittle fern
about two feet high.
The plateau of pitch now widened out, and the whole ground looked
like an asphalt pavement, half overgrown with marsh-loving weeds,
whose roots feed in the sloppy water which overlies the pitch. But,
as yet, there was no sign of the lake. The incline, though gentle,
shuts off the view of what is beyond. This last lip of the lake has
surely overflowed, and is overflowing still, though very slowly. Its
furrows all curve downward; and, it is, in fact, as one of our party
said, “a black glacier.” The pitch, expanding under the burning sun of
day, must needs expand most towards the line of least resistance,
that is, down hill; and when it contracts again under the coolness of
night, it contracts surely from the same cause, more downhill than it
does uphill; so that each particle never returns to the spot whence it
started, but rather drags the particles above it downward towards
itself. At least, so it seemed to us.
At last we surmounted the last rise, and before us lay the famous
lake—not at the bottom of a depression, as we expected, but at the
top of a rise, whence the ground slopes away from it on two sides,
and rises from it very slightly on the two others. The black pool
glared and glittered in the sun. A group of islands, some twenty
yards wide, were scattered about the middle of it. Beyond it rose a
noble forest of Moriche fan-palms; and to the right of them high
wood with giant Mombins and undergrowth of Cocorite—a paradise
on the other side of the Stygian pool.
We walked, with some misgivings, on to the asphalt, and found it
perfectly hard. In a few yards we were stopped by a channel of clear
water, with tiny fish and water-beetles in it; and, looking round, saw
that the whole lake was intersected with channels, so unlike
anything which can be seen elsewhere, that it is not easy to describe
them.
Conceive a crowd of mushrooms, of all shapes from ten to fifty feet
across, close together side by side, their tops being kept at exactly
the same level, their rounded rims squeezed tight against each
other; then conceive water poured on them so as to fill the parting
seams, and in the wet season, during which we visited it, to
overflow the tops somewhat. Thus would each mushroom represent,
tolerably well, one of the innumerable flat asphalt bosses, which
seem to have sprung up each from a separate centre.
In five minutes we had seen, handled, and smelt enough to satisfy
us with this very odd and very nasty vagary of tropic nature; and as
we did not wish to become faint or ill, between the sulphuretted
hydrogen and the blaze of the sun reflected off-the hot black pitch,
we hurried on over the water-furrows, and through the sedge-beds
to the further shore—to find ourselves in a single step out of an
Inferno into a Paradise.
We looked back at the foul place, and agreed that it is well for the
human mind that the Pitch Lake was still unknown when Dante
wrote that hideous poem of his—the opprobrium (as I hold) of the
Middle Age. For if such were the dreams of its noblest and purest
genius, what must have been the dreams of the ignoble and impure
multitude? But had he seen this lake, how easy, how tempting too, it
would have been to him to embody in imagery the surmise of a
certain “Father,” and heighten the torments of the lost being, sinking
slowly into that black Bolge beneath the baking rays of the tropic
sun, by the sight of the saved, walking where we walked, beneath
cool fragrant shade, among the pillars of a temple to which the
Parthenon is mean and small.
Sixty feet and more aloft, the short, smooth columns of the Moriches
towered around us, till, as we looked through the “pillared shade,”
the eye was lost in the green abysses of the forest. Overhead, their
great fan-leaves form a grooved roof, compared with which that of
St. Mary Radcliff, or even of King’s College, is as clumsy as all man’s
works are beside the works of God; and beyond the Moriche wood,
ostrich plumes packed close round madder-brown stems, formed a
wall to our temple, which bore such tracery, carving, and painting,
as would have stricken dumb with awe and delight him who
ornamented the Loggie of the Vatican.
What might not have been made, with something of justice and
mercy, common sense and humanity, of these gentle Arawaks and
Guaraons. What was made of them, almost ere Columbus was dead,
may be judged from this one story, taken from Las Casas.
“There was a certain man named Juan Bono, who was employed by
the members of the Andencia of St. Domingo to go and obtain
Indians. He and his men to the number of fifty or sixty, landed on
the Island of Trinidad. Now the Indians of Trinidad were a mild,
loving, credulous race, the enemies of the Caribs, who ate human
flesh. On Juan Bono’s landing, the Indians armed with bows and
arrows, went to meet the Spaniards, and to ask them who they
were, and what they wanted. Juan Bono replied that his men were
good and peaceful people, who had come to live with the Indians;
upon which, as the commencement of good fellowship, the natives
offered to build houses for the Spaniards. The Spanish captain
expressed a wish to have one large house built. The accommodating
Indians set about building it. It was to be in the form of a bell and to
be large enough for a hundred persons to live in. On any great
occasion it would hold many more.... Upon a certain day Juan Bono
collected the Indians together—men, women, and children—in the
building ‘to see,’ as he told them, ‘what was to be done.’... A horrible
massacre ensued....”
Such was the fate of the poor gentle folk who for unknown ages had
swung their hammocks to the stems of these Moriches, spinning the
skin of the young leaves into twine, and making sago from the pith,
and then wine from the sap and fruit, while they warned their
children not to touch the nests of the humming-birds, which even till
lately swarmed around the lake. For—so the Indian story ran—once
on a time a tribe of Chaymas built their palm-leaf ajoupas upon the
very spot, where the lake now lies, and lived a merry life. The sea
swarmed with shell-fish and turtle, and the land with pine-apples;
the springs were haunted by countless flocks of flamingoes and
horned screamers, pajuis and blue ramiers; and, above all, by
humming-birds. But the foolish Chaymas were blind to the mystery
and beauty of the humming-birds, and would not understand how
they were no other than the souls of dead Indians, translated into
living jewels; and so they killed them in wantonness, and angered
“The Good Spirit.” But one morning, when the Guaraons came by,
the Chayma village had sunk deep into the earth, and in its place
had risen this Lake of Pitch. So runs the tale, told forty years since to
Mr. Joseph, author of a clever little history of Trinidad, by an old half-
caste Indian, Señor Trinidada by name, who was said then to be
nigh one hundred years of age. Surely the people among whom such
a myth could spring up, were worthy of a nobler fate.
At Last (London and New York, 1871).
 THE LACHINE RAPIDS
(CANADA)
DOUGLAS SLADEN
From St. Anne’s to Lachine is not such a very far cry, and it was at
Lachine that the great La Salle had his first seigniory. This Norman
founder of Illinois, who reared on the precipices of Fort St. Louis the
white flag and his great white cross nearly a couple of centuries
before the beginnings of the Metropolis of the West, made his
beginnings at his little seigniory round Fort Remy, on the Island of
Montreal.
The son of a wealthy and powerful burgher of Rouen, he had been
brought up to become a Jesuit. La Salle was well fitted for an
ecclesiastic, a prince of the Church, a Richelieu, but not for a Jesuit,
whose effacement of self is the keystone of the order. To be one
step, one stone in the mighty pyramid of the Order of Jesus was not
for him, a man of mighty individuality like Columbus or Cromwell,
and accordingly his piety, asceticism, vast ambition, and superhuman
courage were lost to the Church and gained to the State. So says
Parkman....
 THE LACHINE RAPIDS.
His seigniory and fort—probably the Fort Remy of which a
contemporary plan has come down to us—were just where the St.
Lawrence begins to widen into Lake St. Louis, abreast of the famous
Rapids of Lachine, shot by so many tourists with blanched cheeks
every summer. I say tourists, for, as I have said before, there is
nothing your true Canadian loves so much as the off-chance of being
drowned in a cataract or “splifficated” on a toboggan slide. It is part
of the national education, like the Bora Bora, or teeth-drawing, of
the Australian aborigines. The very name Lachine breathes a
memory of La Salle, for it was so christened in scorn by his
detractors—the way by which La Salle thinks he is going to get to
China. A palisade containing, at any rate, the house of La Salle, a
stone mill still standing, and a stone barrack and ammunition house,
now falling into most picturesque and pitfallish decay—such is Fort
Remy, founded nearly two centuries and a quarter ago, when
England was just beginning to feel the invigorating effects of a
return to the blessings of Stuart rule. This was in 1667, but La Salle
was not destined to remain here long. In two years’ time he had
learned seven or eight Indian languages, and felt himself ready for
the ambition of his life: to find his way to the Vermilion Sea—the
Gulf of California—for a short cut to the wealth of China and Japan,
—an ambition which resolved itself into founding a province or
Colonial Empire for France at the mouth of the Mississippi, when he
discovered later on that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of
Mexico and not into the Gulf of California.
We cannot follow him in his long connection with the Illinois Indians
and Fort St. Louis. We must leave him gazing from the walls of his
seigniory across the broad bosom of Lake St. Louis at the forests of
Beauharnais and Chateauguay (destined afterwards to be Canada’s
Thermopylæ) and the sunset, behind which must be a new passage
to the South Seas and the treasures of Cathay and Cipango—the
dream which had fired the brain of every discoverer from Columbus
and Vasco Nuñez downwards.
Nowadays Lachine suggests principally the canal by which the rapids
are avoided, the rapids themselves, and the superb Canadian Pacific
Railway Bridge, which is a link in the realization of La Salle’s vast
idea. Hard by, too, the St. Lawrence opens out into the expanse of
Lake St. Louis, dear to Montreallers in the glowing Canadian
summer. Seen from the bank, the rapids are most disappointing to
people who expect them to look like Niagara. Seen from the deck of
the steamer which runs in connection with the morning and evening
train from Montreal, they make the blood of the novice creep,
though the safety of the trip is evinced by the fact that it is no
longer considered necessary to take a pilot from the neighbouring
Indian village of Caughnawaga. It is said that, if the steamer is
abandoned to the current, it is impossible for her to strike, the scour
being so strong; certainly, her engines are slowed; she reels about
like a drunken man; right and left you see fierce green breakers with
hissing white fillets threatening to swamp you at every minute. Every
second thud of these waves upon the sides convinces you that the
ship is aground and about to be dashed to pieces. There seems
absolutely no chance of getting safely out of the boiling waters,
which often rush together like a couple of fountains. Yet, after a few
trips, you know that the Captain is quite justified in sitting in his
easy chair and smoking a cigarette all through it. It is admirably
described in brief by Dawson: “As the steamer enters the long and
turbulent rapids of the Sault St. Louis, the river is contracted and
obstructed by islands; and trap dykes, crossing the softer limestone
rocks, make, by their uneven wear, a very broken bottom. The fall of
the river is also considerable, and the channel tortuous, all which
circumstances combined cause this rapid to be more feared than any
of the others.
“As the steamer enters the rapids the engines are slowed, retaining
a sufficient speed to give steerage way, and, rushing along with the
added speed of the swift current, the boat soon begins to labour
among the breakers and eddies. The passengers grow excited at the
apparently narrow escapes, as the steamer seems almost to touch
rock after rock, and dips her prow into the eddies, while the
turbulent waters throw their spray over the deck.”
On the Cars and Off (London, New York and Melbourne,
1895).
 LAKE ROTORUA
(NEW ZEALAND)
H. R. HAWEIS
The thermæ, or hot baths, of the near future are without doubt the
marvellous volcanic springs of Rotorua and the Lake Taupo district,
in the North Island. They can now be reached from London, via
Francisco, in thirty-three days. They concentrate in a small area all
the varied qualities of the European springs, and other curative
properties of an extraordinary character, which are not possessed in
the same degree by any other known waters. Before Mr. Froude’s
Oceana, and the subsequent destruction of the famous pink
terraces, little attention had been called to one of the most romantic
and amazing spectacles in the world. The old terraces are indeed
gone. The idyllic villages, the blossoming slopes are a waste of
volcanic ashes and scoriæ through which the dauntless vegetation is
only now beginning to struggle. The blue waters are displaced and
muddy, but the disaster of one shock could not rob the land of its
extraordinary mystery and beauty. For a distance of three hundred
miles, south of Lake Taupo and running north, a volcanic crust,
sometimes thin enough to be trodden through, separates the foot
from a seething mass of sulphur, gas, and boiling water, which
around Rotorua and Waikari finds strange and ample vents, in hot
streams, clouds of vapour, warm lakes, geysers, occasionally
developing into appalling volcanic outbursts, which certainly invest
this region with a weird terror, but also with an inconceivable charm,
as white vapour breaks amidst flowering bushes, in the midst of true
valleys of paradise; the streams ripple hot and crystalline over parti-
coloured rocks or through emerald-hued mossy dells; the warm
lakes sleep embedded in soft, weedy banks, reflecting huge
boulders, half clothed in tropical foliage; coral-like deposits here and
there of various tints reproduce the famous terraces in miniature;
and geysers, in odd moments, spout huge volumes of boiling water
with an unearthly roar eighty feet into the air. At Waikari, near Lake
Taupo, specimens of all these wonders are concentrated in a few
square miles—the bubbling white mud pools, like foaming plaster of
Paris, the petrifying springs, into which a boy fell some time ago,
and getting a good silicate coat over him was taken out months
afterwards “as good as ever,” so my guide explained.

LAKE ROTORUA.
“What,” I said, “did he not feel even a little poorly?”
“What’s that?” said the guide, and the joke dawning on him burst
into a tardy roar.
And time would fail me to tell of the dragon’s mouth, and open rock
vomiting sulphur and steam; the lightning pool, in whose depths for
ever flash queer opaline subaqueous flashes; the champagne pool,
the Prince of Wales’s Feathers, a geyser which can be made to play
half an hour after a few clods of mud have blocked up a little hot
stream; the steam hammer, the fairy bath, the donkey engine, etc.
At Rotorua we bought blocks of soap and threw them in to make a
certain big geyser spout. The Maoris have still the monopoly there;
you pay toll, cross a rickety bridge with a Maori girl as guide, and
then visit the pools, terraces, and boiling fountains. They are not
nearly so picturesque as at Waikari, which is a wilderness of
blossoming glens, streams, and wooded vales. But you see the Maori
in his native village.
The volcanic crust is warm to the feet; the Maori huts of “toitoi”
reeds and boards are all about; outside are warm pools; naked boys
and girls are swimming in them; as we approach they emerge half
out of the water; we throw them threepenny bits. The girls seem
most eager and dive best—one cunning little girl about twelve or
thirteen, I believe, caught her coin each time under water long
before it sank, but throwing up her legs half out of water dived
deep, pretending to fetch it up from the bottom. Sometimes there
was a scramble under water for the coin; the girls generally got it;
the boys seemed half lazy. We passed on.
“Here is the brain pot,” said our Maori belle; a hollowed stone. It was
heated naturally—the brains cooked very well there in the old days—
not very old days either.
“Here is the bread oven.” She drew off the cloth, and sure enough in
a hole in the hot ground there were three new loaves getting nicely
browned. “Here are potatoes,” and she pointed to a little boiling
pool, and the potatoes were nearly done; and “here is meat,”—a tin
let into the earth, that was all, contained a joint baking; and farther
on was a very good stew—at least, it being one o’clock, it smelt well
enough. And so there is no fuel and no fire wanted in this and
dozens of other Maori pahs or hamlets. In the cold nights the Maoris
come out of their tents naked, and sit or even sleep in the hot
shallow lakelets and pools hard by. Anything more uncanny than this
walk through the Rotorua Geyser village can hardly be conceived.
The best springs are rented from the Maoris by the Government, or
local hotel-keepers. These are now increasingly fashionable bathing
resorts. The finest bath specific for rheumatism is the Rachel bath,
investing the body with a soft, satiny texture, and a pearly
complexion; the iron, sulphur, and especially the oil bath, from which
when you emerge you have but to shake yourself dry. But the
Priest’s bath, so called from the discoverer, Father Mahoney—who
cured himself of obstinate rheumatism—is perhaps of all the most
miraculous in its effects, and there are no two opinions about it.
Here take place the most incredible cures of sciatica, gout, lumbago,
and all sorts of rheumatic affections. It is simply a question of fact.
The Countess of Glasgow herself told me about the cure of a certain
colonel relative or aide-de-camp of the Governor, the Earl of
Glasgow. The Colonel had for years been a perfect martyr to
rheumatism and gout. He went to Rotorua with his swollen legs and
feet, and came away wearing tight boots, and “as good as ever,” as
my guide would have said. But indeed I heard of scores of similar
cases. Let all victims who can afford it lay it well to heart. A pleasure
trip, of only thirty-two days, changing saloon rail carriage but three
times, and steamer cabins but twice, will insure them an almost
infallible cure, even when chronically diseased and no longer young.
This is no “jeujah” affair. I have seen and spoken to the fortunate
beneficiares—you meet them all over New Zealand. Of course, the
fame of the baths is spreading: the region is only just made
accessible by the opening of the railway from Auckland to Rotorua—
a ten hours’ run. The Waikari and Taupo baths are very similar, and
the situation is infinitely more romantic, but the Government, on
account of the railway, are pushing the Rotorua baths.
I stole out about half-past ten at night; it was clear and frosty. I
made my way to a warm lake at the bottom of the hotel grounds, a
little shed and a tallow candle being the only accommodation
provided. Anything more weird than that starlight bath I never
experienced. I stepped in the deep night from the frosty bank into a
temperature of about 80°.
It was a large shallow lake. I peered into the dark, but I could not
see its extent by the dim starlight; no, not even the opposite banks.
I swam about until I came to the margin—a mossy, soft margin.
Dark branches of trees dipped in the water, and I could feel the
fallen leaves floating about. I followed the margin round till the light
in my wood cabin dwindled to a mere spark in the distance, then I
swam out into the middle of the lake. When I was upright the warm
water reached my chin; beneath my feet seemed to be fine sand
and gravel. Then leaning my head back I looked up at the Milky
Way, and all the expanse of the starlit heavens. There was not a
sound; the great suns and planets hung like golden balls above me
in the clear air. The star dust of planetary systems—whole universes
—stretched away bewilderingly into the unutterable void of
boundless immensity, mapping out here and there the trackless
thoroughfares of God in the midnight skies. “Dont la poussière,” as
Lamartine finely writes in oft-plagiarised words, “sont les Étoiles qui
remontent et tombent devant Lui.”
How long I remained there absorbed in this super-mundane
contemplation I cannot say. I felt myself embraced simultaneously
by three elements—the warm water, the darkness, and the starlit air.
They wove a threefold spell about my senses, whilst my intellect
seemed detached, free. Emancipated from earthly trammels, I
seemed mounting up and up towards the stars. Suddenly I found
myself growing faint, luxuriously faint. My head sank back, my eyes
closed, there was a humming as of some distant waterfall in my
ears. I seemed falling asleep, pillowed on the warm water, but
common sense rescued me just in time. I was alone in an unknown
hot lake in New Zealand at night, out of reach of human call. I
roused myself with a great effort of will. I had only just time to make
for the bank when I grew quite dizzy. The keen frosty air brought me
unpleasantly to my senses. My tallow dip was guttering in its socket,
and hastily resuming my garments, in a somewhat shivering
condition, I retraced the rocky path, then groped my way over the
little bridge under which rushed the hot stream that fed the lakelet,
and guided only by the dim starlight I regained my hotel.
I had often looked up at the midnight skies before—at Charles’s
Wain and the Pleiades on the Atlantic, at the Southern Cross on the
Pacific, and the resplendent Milky Way in the Tropics, at Mars and
his so-called canals, at “the opal widths of the moon” from the
snowy top of Mount Cenis, but never, no, never had I studied
astronomy under such extraordinary circumstances and with such
peculiar and enchanted environments as on this night at the Waikari
hot springs.
Travel and Talk (London and New York, 1896).
 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA
(UNITED STATES)
C. F. GORDON-CUMMING
At last we entered the true forest-belt, and anything more beautiful
you cannot conceive. We forgot our bumps and bruises in sheer
delight. Oh the loveliness of those pines and cedars, living or dead!
For the dead trees are draped with the most exquisite golden-green
lichen, which hangs in festoons many yards in length, and is unlike
any other moss or lichen I ever saw. I can compare it to nothing but
gleams of sunshine in the dark forest. Then, too, how beautiful are
the long arcades of stately columns, red, yellow, or brown, 200 feet
in height, and straight as an arrow, losing themselves in their own
crown of misty green foliage; and some standing solitary, dead and
sunbleached, telling of careless fires, which burnt away their hearts,
but could not make them fall!
There are so many different pines and firs, and cedars, that as yet I
can scarcely tell one from another. The whole air is scented with the
breath of the forests—the aromatic fragrance of resin and of dried
cones and pine-needles baked by the hot sun (how it reminds me of
Scotch firs!); and the atmosphere is clear and crystalline—a medium
which softens nothing, and reveals the farthest distance in sharpest
detail. Here and there we crossed deep gulches, where streams
(swollen to torrents by the melting snow on the upper hills) rushed
down over great boulders and prostrate trees and the victims of the
winter gales.
Then we came to quiet glades in the forest, where the soft lawn-like
turf was all jewelled with flowers; and the sunlight trickled through
the dripping boughs of the feathery Douglas pines, and the jolly little
chip-munks played hide-and-seek among the great cedars, and
chased one another to the very tops of the tall pitch-pines, which
stand like clusters of dark spires, more than 200 feet in height. It
was altogether lovely; but I think no one was sorry when we
reached a turn in the road, where we descended from the high
forest-belt, and crossing a picturesque stream—“Big Creek”—by
name—we found ourselves in this comfortable ranch, which takes its
name from one of the pioneers of the valley.
We have spent a long day of delight in the most magnificent forest
that it is possible to imagine; and I have realized an altogether new
sensation, for I have seen the Big Trees of California, and have
walked round about them, and inside their cavernous hollows, and
have done homage as beseems a most reverent tree-worshipper.
They are wonderful—they are stupendous! But as to beauty—no.
They shall never tempt me to swerve from my allegiance to my true
tree-love—the glorious Deodara forest of the Himalayas.
 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA.
If size alone were to be considered, undoubtedly the Sequoia stands
preëminent, for-to-day we have seen several trees at least three
times as large as the biggest Deodara in the cedar shades of Kunai;
but for symmetry, and grace, and exquisitely harmonious lines, the
“God-given” cedar of Himala stands alone, with its wide spreading,
twisted arms, and velvety layers of foliage studded with pale-green
cones,—its great red stem supporting a pyramid of green, far more
majestic than the diminutive crown of the Big Trees. So at first it was
hard to realize that the California cedars are altogether justified in
concentrating all their growing power in one steady upward
direction, so intent on reaching heaven that they could not afford to
throw out one kindly bough to right or left. They remind me of
certain rigidly good Pharisees, devoid of all loving sympathies with
their fellows, with no outstretched arms of kindly charity—only intent
on regulating their own lives by strictest unvarying rule.
Great Towers of Babel they seem to me, straining upward towards
the heaven which they will never reach.
There is nothing lovable about a Sequoia. It is so gigantic that I feel
overawed by it, but all the time I am conscious that I am comparing
it with the odd Dutch trees in a Noah’s Ark, with a small tuft of
foliage on the top of a large red stem, all out of proportion. And
another unpleasant simile forces itself on my mind—namely, a tall
penguin, or one of the wingless birds of New Zealand, with feeble
little flaps in place of wings, altogether disproportioned to their
bodies.
But this is merely an aside—lest you should suppose that each new
land I visit wins my affections from earlier loves. The Deodara
forests must ever keep their place in my innermost heart: no
sunlight can ever be so lovely as that which plays among their
boughs—no sky so blue—no ice-peaks so glittering as those which
there cleave the heaven; and I am sure that these poor wretched-
looking Digger Indians can never have the same interest for me as
the wild Himalayan highlanders—the Paharis—who assemble at the
little temples of carved cedar-wood in the Great Forest Sanctuary, to
offer their strange sacrifices, and dance in mystic sunwise
procession.
Having said this much, I may now sing the praises of a newly found
delight, for in truth these forests of the Sierras have a charm of their
own, which cannot be surpassed, in the amazing variety of beautiful
pines, firs, and cedars of which they are composed. The white fir,
the Douglas spruce, sugar-pine, and pitch-pine are the most
abundant, and are scattered singly or in singularly picturesque
groups over all the mountains hereabouts.
But the Big Trees are only found in certain favoured spots—sheltered
places watered by snow-fed streams, at an average of from 5,000 to
7,000 feet above the sea. Eight distinct groves have been
discovered, all growing in rich, deep, vegetable mould, on a
foundation of powdered granite. Broad gaps lie between the
principal groves, and it is observed that these invariably lie in the
track of the great ice-rivers, where the accumulation of powdered
rock and gravel formed the earliest commencement of the soil,
which by slow degrees became rich, and deep, and fertile. There is
even reason to believe that these groves are pre-Adamite. A very
average tree (only twenty-three feet in diameter) having been felled,
its annual rings were counted by three different persons, whose
calculations varied from 2,125 to 2,137; and this tree was by no
means very aged-looking—probably not half the age of some of its
big relations, one of which (on King’s river) is forty-four feet in
diameter.
Then, again, some of the largest of these trees are lying prostrate
on the ground; and in the ditches formed by their crash, trees have
grown up of such a size, and in such a position, as to prove that the
fallen giants have lain there for centuries—a thousand years or
more; and although partially embedded in the earth, and surrounded
by damp forest, their almost imperishable timber is as sound as if
newly felled. So it appears that a Sequoia may lie on damp earth for
untold ages without showing any symptom of decay. Yet in the
southern groves huge prostrate trees are found quite rotten,
apparently proving that they must have lain there for an incalculable
period.
Of the eight groves aforesaid, the most northerly is Calaveras, and
the most southerly is on the south fork of the Tule river. The others
are the Stanislaus, the Merced and Crane Flat, the Mariposa, the
Fresno, the King’s and Kaweah rivers, and the north fork of the Tule
river. It is worthy of note that the more northerly groves are found at
the lowest level, Calaveras being only 4,759 feet above the sea,
while the Tule and Kaweah belts range over the Sierras at about
7,000 feet.
The number of Sequoias in the northern groves is reckoned to be as
follows: Calaveras, ninety trees upwards of fifteen feet in diameter;
Stanislaus, or South Calaveras grove, distant six miles from North
Calaveras, contains 1,380 trees over one foot in diameter (many of
them being over thirty feet in diameter). Mariposa has its 600
Sequoias; and the beautiful Fresno grove, some miles from
Mariposa, has 1,200. Merced has fifty, and Tuolumne thirty. The
southern belts have not yet been fully explored, but are apparently
the most extensive.
The Mariposa grove, where we have been to-day, is the only one
which has been reserved by Government as a park for the nation. It
lies five miles from here. I should rather say there are two groves.
The lower grove lies in a sheltered valley between two mountain-
spurs; the upper grove, as its name implies, occupies a higher level,
6,500 feet above the sea.
We breakfasted very early, and by 6 a. m. were in the saddle. Capital,
sure-footed ponies were provided for all who chose to ride. Some of
the gentlemen preferred walking. From this house we had to ascend
about 2,500 feet.
As we gradually worked uphill through the coniferous belts, the trees
seemed gradually to increase in size, so that the eye got accustomed
by degrees; and when at length we actually reached the Big-Tree
grove we scarcely realized that we were in the presence of the race
of giants. Only when we occasionally halted at the base of a colossal
pillar, somewhere about eighty feet in circumference, and about 250
in height, and compared it with its neighbours, and, above all, with
ourselves—poor, insignificant pigmies—could we bring home to our
minds a sense of its gigantic proportions.
With all the reverence due to antiquity, we gazed on these
Methuselahs of the forest, to whom a few centuries more or less in
the record of their long lives are a trifle scarcely worth mentioning.
But our admiration was more freely bestowed on the rising
generation, the beautiful young trees, only about five or six hundred
years of age, and averaging thirty feet in circumference; while still
younger trees, the mere children of about a hundred years old, still
retain the graceful habits of early youth, and are very elegant in
their growth—though, of course, none but mere babies bear the
slightest resemblance to the tree as we know it on English lawns.
It really is heartbreaking to see the havoc that has been done by
careless fires. Very few of the older trees have escaped scathless.
Most of this damage has been done by Indians, who burn the scrub
to scare the game, and the fire spreads to the trees, and there
smoulders unheeded for weeks, till happily some chance
extinguishes it. Many lords of the forest have thus been burnt out,
and have at last fallen, and lie on the ground partly embedded,
forming great tunnels, hollow from end to end, so that in several
cases two horsemen can ride abreast inside the tree from (what was
once) its base to its summit.
We halted at the base of the Grizzly Giant, which well deserves its
name; for it measures ninety-three feet in circumference, and looks
so battered and weather-worn that it probably is about the most
venerable tree in the forest. It is one of the most picturesque
Sequoias I have seen, just because it has broken through all the
rules of symmetry, so rigidly observed by its well conditioned, well-
grown brethren; and instead of being a vast cinnamon-coloured
column, with small boughs near the summit, it has taken a line of its
own, and thrown out several great branches, each about six feet in
diameter—in other words, about as large as a fine old English beech-
tree!
This poor old tree has a great hollow burnt in it (I think the Indians
must have used it as a kitchen), and our half dozen ponies and
mules were stabled in the hollow—a most picturesque group. It
seems strange to see trees thus scorched and charred, with their
insides clean burnt out, yet, on looking far, far overhead, to perceive
them crowned with fresh blue-green, as if nothing ailed them, so
great is their vitality. Benjamin Taylor says of such a one, “It did not
know that it ought to be dead. The tides of life flowed so mightily up
that majestic column!”
The Indians say that all other trees grow, but that the Big Trees are
the special creation of the Great Spirit. So here too, you see, we
have, not tree-worship, but something of the reverence accorded to
the cedar in all lands. The Hebrew poet sang of “the trees of the
Lord, even the cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted.” And the
Hill tribes of Northern India build a rudely carved temple beneath
each specially magnificent clump of Deodar, to mark that they are
“God’s trees”; while in the sacred Sanskrit poems they are called
Deva dara or Deva daru, meaning the gift, the spouse, the word of
God, but in any case, denoting the sanctity of the tree.
Whether these Californian Indians had any similar title for their Big
Trees, I have failed to learn; but the name by which they are known
to the civilized world is that of Sequoyah, a half-caste Cherokee
Indian, who distinguished himself by inventing an alphabet and a
written language for his tribe. It was a most ingenious alphabet,
consisting of eighty-six characters, each representing a syllable, and
was so well adapted to its purpose that it was extensively used by
the Indians before the white man had ever heard of it. Afterwards it
was adopted by the missionaries, who started a printing-press, with
types of this character, and issued a newspaper for the Cherokee
tribe, by whom this singular alphabet is still used.
When the learned botanist, Endlicher, had to find a suitable name for
the lovely redwood cedars, he did honour to Sequoyah, by linking his
memory forever with that of the evergreen forests of the Coast
Range. And when afterwards these Big Trees of the same race were
discovered on the Sierras, they of course were included under the
same family name.
Granite Crags (Edinburgh and London, 1884).
 GERSOPPA FALLS
(INDIA)
W. M. YOOL
These, the most famous falls in India, are situated on the Siruvatti
(or Sharavati) river, which at that part of its course forms the
boundary between the north-west corner of the native state of
Mysore and the Bombay Presidency. The source of the river is in
Mysore, half-way up Koda Chadri, a hill about five thousand feet
high, near the famous old town of Nuggur, once the seat of the
Rajahs of Mysore, where are still to be seen the ruins of an old fort
and palace, and the walls of the town, eight miles in circumference.
The natives have a legend that the god Rama shot an arrow from his
bow on to Koda Chadri, and that the river sprang from the spot
where the arrow fell, and hence the name Siruvatti or “arrow-born.”
From its source the river flows north for nearly thirty miles through
the heart of the Western Ghauts, and then turns west and flows
down through the jungles of North Canara to the Indian Ocean—
another thirty miles. Shortly after taking the bend westwards there
comes the fall, which, on account of its height, is worthy of being
reckoned amongst the great waterfalls of the world. Here, at one
leap, the river falls eight hundred and thirty feet; and as, at the
brink, it is about four hundred yards wide, there are few, if any, falls
in the world to match it.
 GERSOPPA FALLS.
During the dry weather the river comes over in four separate falls,
but in the height of the monsoon these become one, and as at that
time the water is nearly thirty feet deep, the sight must be truly one
of the world’s wonders. It has been calculated that in flood-time
more horse-power is developed by the Gersoppa Falls than by
Niagara. This of course is from the much greater height of Gersoppa,
eight hundred and thirty feet against about one hundred and sixty
feet of Niagara, although the Niagara Falls are much wider and
vaster in volume. The Kaieteur Falls of the Essequibo in British
Guiana are seven hundred and forty-one feet sheer and eighty-eight
more of sloping cataract, but the river there is only one hundred
yards wide. At the Victoria Falls, the Zambesi, one thousand yards
wide, falls into an abyss four hundred feet deep.
My friend and I visited the falls in the end of September, about a
month after the close of the monsoon, when there were four falls
with plenty of water in them. The dry weather is the best for the
sight-seer, as, during the monsoon, the rain is so heavy and
continuous that there would not be much pleasure in going there,
although doubtless the sight would be grander and more awe-
inspiring. The drainage area above the falls is seven hundred and
fifty square miles, and the average yearly rainfall over this tract is
two hundred and twenty inches, nearly the whole of which falls in
the three monsoon months, June, July, August; so it can be
imagined what an enormous body of water comes down the river in
these months. There is a bungalow for the use of visitors on the
Bombay side of the river, about a hundred yards away from the falls,
built on the very brink of the precipice overhanging the gorge
through which the river flows after taking the leap. So close to the
edge is it that one could jump from the veranda sheer into the bed
of the river nearly a thousand feet below.
The four falls are called The Rajah, The Roarer, The Rocket, and La
Dame Blanche. The Rajah and Roarer fall into a horseshoe-shaped
cavern, while the Rocket and La Dame Blanche come over where the
precipice is at right angles to the flow of the river, and are very
beautiful falls. The Rajah comes over with a rush, shoots clear out
from the rock, and falls one unbroken column of water the whole
eight hundred and thirty feet. The Roarer comes rushing at an angle
of sixty degrees down a huge furrow in the rock for one hundred
and fifty feet, making a tremendous noise, then shoots right out into
the middle of the horseshoe, and mingles its waters with those of
the Rajah about half-way down. The Rocket falls about two hundred
feet in sheer descent on to a huge knob of rock, where it is dashed
into spray, which falls in beautiful smoky rings, supposed to
resemble the rings formed by the bursting of rockets. La Dame
Blanche, which my friend and I thought the most beautiful,
resembles a snow-white muslin veil falling in graceful folds, and
clothing the black precipice from head to foot.
From the bungalow a fine view is got of the Rocket and La Dame
Blanche, and when the setting sun lights up these falls and forms
numerous rainbows in the spray, it makes an indescribably beautiful
scene. Here one is alone with Nature, not a house or patch of
cultivation anywhere. In front is the river, and all around are
mountains and primeval forests, while the ceaseless roar of the
waterfall adds a grandeur and a solemnity not easily described.
Near where the Rajah goes over is a projecting rock called the
Rajah’s Rock, so named because one of the Rajahs of Nuggur tried
to build a small pagoda on it, but before being finished, it was
washed away. The cutting in the rock for the foundation is still
visible. To any one who has a good head, a fine view of the
horseshoe cavern can be had from this rock. The plan is to lie down
on your stomach, crawl to the edge, and look over, when you can
see straight down into the pool where the waters are boiling and
seething nearly a thousand feet below. I took a few large stones to
the edge and dropped them over, but they were lost to view long
before they reached the bottom. It was quite an appreciable time
after my losing sight of them before I observed the faint splash they
made near the edge of the pool.
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