428 THE MANUFACTURE OF SHIELDS. 



over the last of these difficult portions of the road, 

 I felt quite sure my own mother would have 

 found it difficult to recognise her son in the hog- 

 trotting, moss-trooping Bedouin that was now trying 

 by a series of bending and extending movements 

 of the feet, to squeeze out of the splits in the 

 leather, as much as possible of the mud contained 

 in his boots. 



Having got quite clear of the marshy district, we 

 entered upon a fine grassy plain, where we per- 

 ceived two buffaloes, but at too great a distance for 

 us to think of pursuing them. I learnt, on this 

 occasion, that of the hide of these animals, the 

 Dankalli manufacture their shields. These are 

 well made, and formed of a circular slab of the still 

 moist skin, about twenty inches in diameter, 

 moulded into the required concave form, by being 

 dried upon a corresponding convexity of heaped-up, 

 hard clay. The rim is, at the same time, curled 

 outwards and upwards by being well pecked as 

 with a mattock, all around by a wooden instrument, 

 exactly identical with the so-called w r ooclen hoe, 

 contained in the Egyptian room in the British 

 Museum, and corresponding in form with the 

 handle of the Dankalli axe I have before described. 

 The shield is held in one hand by a strong and hard 

 ring of twisted hide that, like a bar of metal, crosses 

 over the centre, its size being such as to admit of 

 the shield being slung sometimes upon the arm, 

 like a basket. The centre of the front is orna- 



