Page:Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians Volume 1.djvu/440

388 The Blacks, like the Ethiopians, wore short aprons of bulls' hides, or the skins of wild beasts, frequently drawn by the Egyptian artists with the tail projecting from the girdle, for the purpose of adding to their grotesque appearance by this equivocal addition: the chiefs, decked with ostrich and other feathers, had large circular gold ear-rings, collars, and bracelets; and many of the Ethiopian grandees were clad in garments of fine linen, with leathern girdles highly ornamented, a leopard skin being occasionally thrown over the shoulder. It is reasonable to suppose that the linen was purchased from the Egyptians, whose conquests in the country would naturally lead to its introduction among them; and this is rendered more probable, from its transparent fineness being represented in the same manner as in the dresses of the Egyptians, and from its being confined to the chiefs as an article of value, indicative of their rank.

The Ethiopian tribute consisted of gold and silver, precious stones, ostrich feathers, skins, ebony, ivory, apes, oxen of the long-horned breed still found in Abyssinia, lions, oryxes, leopards, giraffes, and hounds; and they were obliged to supply the victors with slaves, which the Egyptians sometimes exacted even from the conquered countries of Asia. Their chief arms were the bow, spear, and club: they fought mostly on foot, and the tactics of a disciplined army appear to have been unknown to them.