Setting aside the two questions of rotatory motion and convenience of sharpening, it is possible that the peculiar structure of the blade may be owing to the fact that such a structure would produce the greatest amount of strength with the least amount of material. The sword bayonet of the Chassepot rifle is made on a similar principle. Whether the Kaffir is aware of this principle and forges his spear head in accordance with it, is another point. The reader, better informed than the Kaffir, may perhaps remember that the identical principle is carried out in the “corrugated” iron, now in such general use for buildings, roofs, and similar purposes.
Kaffirs have a great fondness for implements made of soft iron, and prefer a knife made of that material to the best blade that Sheffield can produce. They admit that for some purposes the steel blade is superior to their own, but that for ordinary work nothing can compare with the soft iron. The steel blade breaks, and is useless, while the soft iron only bends. Moreover, when they want to scoop out a hollow in a piece of wood, such as the bowl of a spoon, the inflexible steel blade would be nearly useless. But a Kaffir simply takes his soft iron knife, bends it to the requisite curve, and thus can make, at a moment’s notice, a gouge with any degree of curvature. When he has finished his work, he puts the blade on a flat stone, and beats it straight again in a few seconds. The Kaffir knife is not at all like our own, but is shaped just like the head of an assagai. In using it, he grasps the handle just as artists represent assassins holding daggers, and not as we hold knives. He always cuts away from himself, as is shown on page 73, [No. 1]; and, clumsy as this mode of using a knife may appear, Englishmen have often learned to appreciate it, and to employ it in preference to the ordinary European fashion.
Unfit as would be the tools made by a Kaffir when employed in Europe, those made in Europe and used in Southern Africa are still less useful. Being unacquainted with this fact, both travellers and settlers are apt to spend much money in England upon articles which they afterward find to be without the least value—articles which an experienced settler would not take as a gift. As a familiar example of the difference between the tools required in various countries, the axe may be mentioned. It is well known that, of all the varieties of this tool, the American axe is the best, as it has attained its present superiority by dint of long experience on part of the makers among the vast forests of their country. Emigrants, therefore, almost invariably supply themselves with a few American axes, and in most cases they could not do better. But in Southern Africa this excellent tool is as useless as would be a razor in chipping stones. The peculiar wood of the mimosa, a tree which is used so universally in Southern Africa, is sure to notch the edge of the axe, and in a short time to render it incapable of doing its work; whereas the South African axe, which would be a clumsy and slow working tool in America, can cut down the hardest mimosa without suffering any injury.
There is another reason why a Kaffir prefers his own iron work to that of European make. His own manufacture has the property of resisting damp without rusting. If an European knife or steel tool of the finest quality be left in the open air all night, and by the side of it a Kaffir’s assagai, the former will be covered with rust, while the latter is as bright as ever. Such is the case with those assagais which are brought to England. It is possible that this freedom from rust may be obtained by a process similar to that which is employed in the manufacture of geological hammers, namely, that while the metal is hot, it is plunged into oil, and then hammered. The excellence of the blade is partially owing to the fact that the fire in which the metal is smelted, and afterward heated for the forge, is made of charcoal, so as to convert the iron into a kind of steel. The celebrated “wootz” steel of India is made by placing the iron in small crucibles together with little twigs of certain trees, and then submitting the crucible to a very intense heat.
It is evident that, in order to produce such weapons, the Kaffir must be a good blacksmith, and it is certain that, when we take into consideration the kind of work which has to be done, he can hardly be surpassed in his art. Certainly, if any English blacksmith were given a quantity of iron ore, and only had the very primitive tools which the Kaffir blacksmith employs, he would be entirely vanquished by his dusky brother of the forge.
Among the Kaffirs, a blacksmith is a man of considerable importance, and is much respected by the tribe. He will not profane the mystery of his craft by allowing uninitiated eyes to inspect his various processes, and therefore carries on his operations at some distance from the kraal. His first care is to prepare the bellows. The form which he uses prevails over a very large portion of Africa, and is seen, with some few modifications, even among the many islands of Polynesia. It consists of two leathern sacks, at the upper end of which is a handle. To the lower end of each sack is attached the hollow horns of some animal, that of the cow or the eland being most commonly used; and when the bags are alternately inflated and compressed, the air passes out through the two horns. Of course the heat of the fire would destroy the horns if they were allowed to come in contact with it, and they are therefore inserted, not into the fire, but into an earthenware tube, which communicates with the fire. The use of valves is unknown; but as the two horns do not open into the fire, but into the tube, the fire is not drawn into the bellows as would otherwise be the case. This arrangement, however, causes considerable waste of air, so the bellows blower is obliged to work much harder than would be the case if he were provided with an instrument that could conduct the blast directly to its destination. The ancient Egyptians used a bellows of precisely similar construction, except that they did not work them entirely by hand. They stood with one foot on each sack, and blew the fire by alternately pressing on them with the feet, and raising them by means of a cord fastened to their upper ends.
When the blacksmith is about to set to work, he digs a hole in the ground, in which the fire is placed, and then sinks the earthenware tube in a sloping direction, so that the lower end opens at the bottom of the hole, while the upper end projects above the level of the ground. The two horns are next inserted into the upper end of the earthenware tube, and the bellows are then fastened in their places, so that the sacks are conveniently disposed for the hands of the operator, who sits between them. A charcoal fire is then laid in the hole, and is soon brought to a powerful heat by means of the bellows. A larger stone serves the purpose of an anvil, and a smaller stone does duty for a hammer. Sometimes the hammer is made of a conical piece of iron, but in most cases a stone is considered sufficient. The rough work of hammering the iron into shape is generally done by the chief blacksmith’s assistants, of whom he has several, all of whom will pound away at the iron in regular succession. The shaping and finishing the article is reserved by the smith for himself. The other tools are few and simple, and consist of punches and rude pincers made of two rods of iron.
With these instruments the Kaffir smith can cast brass into various ornaments. Sometimes he pours it into a cylindrical mould, so as to make a bar from which bracelets and similar ornaments can be hammered, and sometimes he makes studs and knobs by forming their shapes in clay moulds.
In the illustration [No. 2], on page 97, a native forge is seen in full operation. The chief smith is at the left of the engraving, seated at the bellows and blowing the fire, in which is placed an iron rod which is going to be forged into an assagai head. The manner in which the horn tubes of the bellows are fastened to the ground—a stick being laid across each horn, and a heavy stone upon each stick—is well shown. At the right hand of the smith is a basket containing charcoal, and another is seen near the assistant. On the opposite side sits the assistant or apprentice blacksmith, busily hammering with a conical stone at the spear head which is being forged, and at his side lie one or two finished heads. Behind them, another smith is hard at work with a huge stone with which he is crushing the ore. On the right hand of the illustration is seen the reed fence which is erected in order to keep off the wind, and in the middle distance is the kraal to which the smiths belong. The reed fence is supported by being lashed to a mimosa. Some jars of beer stand within the shadow of the fence for the occasional refreshment of the blacksmiths.
How the blacksmith contrives to work without burning his right hand is rather unintelligible. I have handled the conical hammer, and find that the hand is brought so close to the iron that, when it is heated to a glowing redness, the effect upon the fingers must be singularly unpleasant, not to mention the sparks that fly about so liberally when heated iron is struck. Sometimes, when a native is making small objects, he takes a tolerably large hammer, reverses it, and drives the small end deeply into the ground. The face of the hammer is then uppermost, and answers as an anvil, on which he works with a hammer of smaller size.