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In section the fox-holes of Cajamarquilla have a diamenter of 23 ins and a depth of 5 ft 7 ins. I counted 209 holes (!) in a single street. They must have served a very important and practical purpose, otherwise why all the expenditure of effort? This explanation is not very convincing when one examines the holes, which are hollowed out to human size. Naturally such holes could be filled with grain, but surely it would soon begin to germinate or spoil in the damp ground and moist heat? And how was the grain shovelled out of the narrow silos again? In the absence of grain we filled one of the silos with sand. Then we tried to scoop it out again with our hands and shovels. The upper third did not take much effort, but from the middle downwards the work became exhausting. The last third was sheer torture. With head hanging downward, one leant into the hole, scooped up a handful of sand, raised oneself up and put it near the edge. But then we reached a depth when we could no longer lift our hands past our heads without the sand trickling out of them. We soon put our shovels away because the narrowness of the shaft no longer permitted any leverage. Finally we tied small pails to ropes and lowered them into the depths. If we tried to fill them with the shovels, half the contents tipped out. We tried all kinds of dodges. After working all day and using every device we could think of, we had emptied one silo until only six to eight inches of sand were left. That remnant is probably still there today. Ever since I was told that the numerous fox-holes were ‘grain silos', one question has been bothering me. Why did the peoples of Cajamarquilla take such tremendous pains over the excavation of such narrow holes? As Cajamarquilla was obviously a well organised urban community, the idea of one large and practical communal silo must have suggested itself. After investigating on the spot, Iam by no means convinced that the time-honoured explanation is valid, but, people say, they must have been grain silos. well-known fact that no air-raids took place before the twentieth century! How did the local inhabitants explain the hundreds of holes? They told me that they had once been grain silos. Why didn't they install one big family silo?