MANUFACTURES OF THE NUAKKETSIES. 
597 
sequently, in that portion of the continent, few traces of civilized 
notions are now discoverable : but on the eastern^ the existence of 
nations, higher northward, among whom science and arts have flou- 
rished, may reasonably be considered as the remote cause that the 
state of society and arts among the northeastern tribes, was found, 
as Hottentots who have visited them reported to me, to be more 
advanced, in proportion as they travelled farther in that direction. 
As a practical illustration of the extremely slow pace at which 
knowledge moves through these countries, it may be remarked that 
the Bachapins are now only first beginning to acquire the art of work- 
ing in iron. The only blacksmith at this time at Litakun, was the 
man whom I have already mentioned *, and who had very lately 
learnt it by attentively watching the operations of the smiths at 
Melitta the chief-town of the Nudkketsies, where he had been on a 
visit to barter for iron goods of their manufacture : the Bachapins 
having been hitherto in the habit of obtaining all articles of that kind 
from these northeastern nations. 
As a proof of the skill with which the Nuakketsies work in that 
metal, I subjoin at the end of the chapter, a representation of the 
head of a koveh, a sort of hassagay which is distinguished from the 
rumo or lerumo, the ordinary sort f , by the barbed form of its blade, 
and its jagged stem. The upper figure shows the iron head with a 
part of the wooden shaft ; the lower figures are given of the natural 
size, for the purpose of exhibiting more intelligibly both in front and 
in profile, the manner in which the stem is jagged. This stem 
appears to have been first forged plain, with squared corners ; and 
these afterwards to have been cut into sharp points standing in 
opposite directions. These points are cut out from the corners, with 
an accuracy which many European workmen could not surpass, and 
which many others could not equal. 
The koveh^ therefore, is far beyond the powers of the Bachapin 
* At page 482. 
f The lerumo may be seen repi'esented in the tenth plate of the first volume, and in 
the vignette at page 186. of the present volume. 
