Chap. IX. MODE OF PREPARING SKINS. 131 



which comes from the fertile Barotse valley. The.se oxen 

 stand high on their legs, and are often nearly .six feet at 

 the withers. They have big horns, and a pair which we 

 brought from the lake measured eight and a half feet from 

 tip to tip. 



The Makololo are in the habit of shaving a little bit from 

 one side of the horns while they are growing, in order to 

 make them curve in that direction and assume fantastic 

 shapes. The stranger the curvature, the more handsome the 

 ox is considered to be, and the longer he is spared to be an 

 ornament to the herd. This is an ancient custom in Africa, 

 for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia are pictured on some of 

 the oldest Egyptian monuments bringing contorted-homed 

 cattle into Egypt. This is not the only mode of adorning 

 their oxen. Some are branded in lines with a hot knife, 

 which causes a permanent discolouration of the hair, like the 

 bands on the hide of a zebra. Another mode of decoration is 

 to detach pieces of skin round the head, two or three inches 

 long and broad, and these are allowed to heal in a dependent 

 position. 



The Makololo use the ox-hide for making either mantles oi 

 shields. For the former purpose it is stretched out by means 

 of pegs, and dried. Ten or a dozen men collect round it, and 

 with small adzes shave ofi' the substance on the fleshy side 

 until the skin is left quite thin. A quantity of brain and 

 some thick milk are then smeared over it. It is next combed 

 with an instrument made of a number of iron spikes tied 

 round a piece of wood, so that the points only project beyond 

 it. This loosens the fibres. Milk or butter is applied to it 

 again, and it forms a garment nearly as soft as cloth. 



The shields are made of hides partially dried in the sun, 

 and beaten with hammers until they are stiff and dry. Two 

 broad belts of a differently-coloured skin are sewed into them 

 longitudinally, and sticks are inserted to make them rigid. 

 In their battles they trust largely to their agility in springing 

 aside from the flying javelins, but the shield is a great pro- 

 tection when so many are thrown that it is impossible not to 

 receive some of them. From what I have seen them do in 

 elephant-hunting, I believe, when they have room to make a 

 run and discharge a spear, with the aid of the impulse imparted 



L 



