Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/77

Rh firearms, declaring them to be cowardly weapons with which the poltroon can slay the bravest.

The Somali spear is a form of the Cape Assegai. A long, thin, pliant and knotty shaft of the Dibi, Diktab, and Makari trees, is dried, polished, and greased with rancid butter: it is generally of a dull yellow colour, and sometimes bound, as in Arabia, with brass wire for ornament. Care is applied to make the rod straight, or the missile flies crooked; it is garnished with an iron button at the head, and a long, thin, tapering head of coarse bad iron, made at Berberah and other places by the Tomal. The length of the shaft may be four feet eight inches; the blade varies from twenty to twenty-six inches, and the whole weapon is about seven feet long. Some polish the entire spear-head, others only its socket or ferule; commonly, however, it is all blackened by heating it to redness, and rubbing it with cow's horn. In the towns, one of these weapons is carried; on a journey and in battle two, as amongst the Tíbús—a small javelin for throwing and a large spear reserved for the thrust. Some warriors, especially amongst the Ísa, prefer a coarse heavy lance, which never leaves the hand. The Somali spear is held in various ways: generally the thumb and forefinger grasp the third nearest to the head, and the shaft resting