NATIVE SMITHY 
209 
encourage him to fantastic leaps in the attempt to strike the 
suspended climbing figure with his head. Both Hammar and I 
joined in the game, to the great gratification of our boys, who 
since the departure of the main column with Jan Veyers had by 
their good behaviour earned for themselves a relationship with 
us more akin to friendship than the position of servants. 
Next day Makoyo, during a visit, informed us that he could 
not get the boys and guides we required till to-morrow, but 
hinted that a bar of lead and some powder to load his old flint¬ 
lock with would be acceptable. To keep up the feeling of friend¬ 
ship we gave him a few charges of powder and a bar of lead. 
We paid him a visit inside of the stockade, attracted by the 
tinkling sound of hammering with iron tools. Makoyo was 
seated under a large mabula tree surrounded by his suite, one 
of whom was a blacksmith at work, shaping a piece of iron into 
a spear. The bellows were fashioned out of two hollow tree- 
trunks, standing side by side, about one foot in diameter and 
eighteen inches high; at the closed bottom of each of the 
cylinders was an orifice leading into a wooden nozzle that con¬ 
ducted the air current as near to the fire as was compatible with 
its safety. The air-current was caused by a loose flexible leather 
or skin top that was fixed round the upper outer edge of each 
of the hollow tree-trunks, without any valvular arrangement 
whatever. Each leather covering had a stick fastened to its 
centre, by which it was alternately raised dome-shaped above 
the cylinder below, and then depressed. While the one leather 
covering was raised, the other underwent a contrary movement 
at the hands of a boy who worked the bellows, holding one stick 
in each hand. As he pulled one up he dived the other down, 
thus forcing a pretty regular stream of air on to the charcoal 
fire. In addition to these bellows the smith had two hammers 
and a triangular anvil, let into a piece of wood for firmness. 
With these primitive tools the smith fashioned a very good 
spear, the hilt of which could be let into a hollow made in 
the end of a long stick that serves as shaft to this kind of 
weapon. 
o 
