But the labour in proportion to the amount obtained is great.

To get a yam about half an inch in circumference and a foot in length they have to dig a hole above a foot square and two feet in depth; a considerable portion of the time of the women and children is therefore passed in this employment.
If the men are absent upon any expedition the females are left in charge of one who is old or sick; and in traversing the bush you often stumble on a large party of them, scattered about in the forest, digging roots, and collecting the different species of fungus.
The roots are eaten raw or roasted in the fire; in either case they are, most of them, very good.

Some have the taste of a mild onion, and others have almost the taste and appearance of a small English potato, but of these only a single root is attached to each plant: the mene has rather an acid taste and when eaten alone is said, by the natives, to cause dysentery; they never use it in the southern districts without pounding it between two stones and sprinkling over it a few pinches of an earth which they consider extremely good and nutritious; they then pound the mould and root together into a paste, and swallow it as a bonne bouche, the noxious qualities of the plant being destroyed by the earth.
Many other roots are pounded between flat stones into a paste and are then made into a cake and baked.

The two roots which taste the best, when cooked in this way, are the jee-ta and yunjid.
The former of these resembles in appearance and taste the unripe seeds of Indian corn; it is in season in June and is really very palatable.

The latter is the root of a species of flag, and consists of a case enclosing a multitude of tender filaments, with nodules of farinaceous matter adhering to them.