690 Notes on the Ethnology of the Congo. ` [Aug 
degree of confidence about the customs and arts of these Afri i 
cans. The collections are, as one would reason, rich in weapons i 
and poor in clothing, coming from the region of perpetual feud € 
and almost utter nakedness. It is interesting to remark that 
nearly all the African tribes know the art of smelting iron, ani 
make a fine quality of metal by the rudest sort of apparatus; it 
fact, they are in the Iron Age. It is unknown how these savages 
of low grade became acquainted with the iron-smelting process, 
—an art which indicates a great step in civilization. Thougha | 
matter of conjecture, it is highly probable that from that ancient 
and mysterious mother of arts and sciences, Egypt, came this | 
knowledge of the use and manufacture of iron throughout the 
entire “ Dark Continent.” | 
Africa is very rich in iron. Travellers have noted great beds ol 
highly-oxidized ore of a kind particularly fitted for these simple 
operations. The usual method of smelting iron is to pile layer 
of ore and charred wood in a small mud furnace. A continuolé 
current of air is blown in by two bellows working alternately, 
or, among the Bongo, there are simply four or five draught-holes 
at the bottom of the furnace. When the ore has been smelt 
the furnace is allowed to cool, and the cake of ashes is wash | 
the lumps of iron collected, reheated, and pounded into a 
herent mass with a stone hammer ona stone anvil. The irot 
thus made is very tenacious and remarkably rust-proof. te 
preferred by the natives to steel or foreign iron, because if ie 
assagai-head is bent into an interrogation-point the warrior : 
calmly beats it into shape with a stone. The iron also holds 
good edge; in fact, a sharp assagai-head is the razor of the o 
civilized barber. The weapons, which are hammered out Wit 
a stone, are, despite the fact, finely finished, and are as creditable 
specimens of smith-work as can be found. The common 1%. 
that conventionality and repetition in art argues a low degre? € 
civilization is met by the fact that the aboriginal workman cannot 
make two things alike. He does not work by pattern ; he follows, 
for instance, the shape of his iron or the suggestion of a chatti 
blow. This is the reason of the so-called “ originality” of pi 
peoples not practising division of labor or using machine 
Among the forty-five specimens of assagais every one is differ 
ent, although they can be separated into several groups Y 
-general likenesses. sA 
g si 
PS 
