Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/812

792 bushbok, with its rows of white spots and stripes upon a yellow ground. Leopard-skins are worn by chiefs only." Of the Bongo the same author says that they "simply knead and full by ashes and dung the skin for their aprons, etc.; they also apply fat and oil until the skins are pliant." Kaffirs, we are told, invite friends to help them in dressing skins. The party "sit around the skin and scrape it, carefully removing all fat and reducing the thickness. They



then work it all over by pulling and stretching it over their knees. When completely kneaded each takes a bunch of iron skewers or acacia thorns and revolves the bundle in his hands, points downward, on the skin, to tear up the fibers and add pliancy and raise a fine thick nap. Powder of decayed acacia stumps is then rubbed into the skin with the hands. A little grease is then carefully rubbed in." The beautiful buckskin which our own Indians make is well known. The skin is soaked in a lye of wood ashes for some time. It is then stretched and pegged out, the hair scraped off,