Date: 1885
In the top stone is inserted an upright handle for one or two persons to turn; and oc casionally a hole is bored which receives a staff suspended from the ceiling, and two women sitting opposite to each other twist this around, one of them from time to time dropping a pinch of grain into the orifice of the top block.  I was at first a little surprised at the capital manner in which these rude machines performed their work ; but upon lifting off the upper half I found that the wily Yakut had set at a proper depth small cubes of flint stone into the faces of both blocks.  The meal is coarse and unbolted ; but then the husks go to fill the abhorred vacuum, which at the Delta in times of famine I have seen filled with wood.