434 METALLURGY. 



For domestic animals the Hottentots had oxen, sheep, and 

 dogs. It might have naturally been supposed that oxen were 

 used in the same manner all over the world. They seem evi- 

 dently adapted either for draught or for food. "With the dog 

 the case is different ; we ourselves use him in various ways, 

 and one feels therefore the less surprise at the different ser- 

 vices which he performs for different races of savages. But 

 even with regard to cattle the same was the case : besides 

 what we may call their normal uses, the Veddahs, or wild 

 inhabitants of Ceylon, used oxen in hunting ; and the Hotten- 

 tots trained some to serve as what we may call sheep-oxen, or 

 cow-oxen that is to say, to guard and manage the flocks and 

 herds and others as war-oxen, a function which might have 

 been considered as opposed to the whole character of the 

 beast, but in which, nevertheless, they appear to have been 

 very useful. 



The Hottentots of late years not only used iron weapons, 

 but even made such for themselves. The ore was smelted 

 in the following manner:* "They make a hole in a raised 

 ground, large enough to contain a good quantity of ironstones, 

 which are found here and there in plenty in the Hottentot 

 countries. In this hole they melt out the iron from the ore. 

 About a foot and a half from this hole, upon the descent, they 

 make another, something less. This is the receiver of the 

 melted iron, which runs into it by a narrow channel they cut 

 from one hole to the other. Before they put the ironstones 

 into the hole where the iron is to be smelted out of them, 

 they make a fire in the hole, quite up to the mouth of it, in 

 order to make the earth about it thoroughly hot. When they 

 suppose the earth about it is well heated, they fill the hole 

 almost up with ironstones. They then make a large fire over 

 the stones, which they supply from time to time with fuel, 

 till the iron is melted and all of it is run into the receiver. 



* Kolben, 1. c. p. 239. 



