422 A DANKALLI AXE. 



bustle of unloading had subsided, and as he seemed 

 inclined to remain, I made Zaido enlarge it for our 

 better accommodation. He was anxious to explain 

 how he came to practise upon me the little impo- 

 sition he had employed as regarded Durtee Ohmed. 

 To occupy himself whilst he remained, he brought 

 with him part of the branch of a myrrh-tree and a 

 small kind of axe, that reminded me of one somewhat 

 of the same kind I have seen represented upon old 

 Egyptian monuments. It consisted of an iron 

 head, the cutting edge of which was about one inch 

 and a-half in extent, whilst the body of it was a 

 socket three or four inches long, which received into 

 it the pointed extremity of the short arm of a trimmed 

 branch, which joined at a very acute angle the 

 longer, or handle proper, about a foot and a-half 

 long, the shorter portion inserted into the axe head 

 not being more than six inches.* 



With this primitive tool he soon chopped out of 

 the wood a pretty correct form of a spoon which 

 gradually assumed, under the repeated light 

 blows of the axe, a very elegant shape. I was 

 so much pleased with this production of savage 

 genius, that I gave him a small hollow- 

 gouging chisel he had long coveted, to scoop out 

 and finish the bowl. My pocket-knife was also 

 in requisition, to enable him to ornament the 



* Several ancient British celts have been compared with the 

 head of one of these axes I brought home with me, and are in size 

 and shape exactly similar. 



