Various makeshift foot coverings are used by different nations. Some of the bushmen and half-civilised Hottentots, when they have killed an animal of suitable size, such as a buffalo, quagga, or any of the larger antelopes, will cut the skin all round above and below the hough, and, having stripped it off, will draw it upon their own foot, so that the heel comes where the hough of the animal used to be; the toe is then closed with a few stitches, a slit for a small tie or lacing is made on the instep, and, by walking in it before it dries or hardens, it is trodden into the shape of the foot. We have chosen the quagga skin for our illustration because the stripes help to identify the parts used for the hough-skin shoe; but it is, perhaps, the least eligible for the purpose, as it dries so hard and rigid that it must be very unpleasant wear. The North American Indians use the hough-skin of the moose in the same manner.
The peasantry and brigands of Calabria and many other portions of the South of Europe, wear a very simple and useful kind of makeshift shoe. A piece of soft hide is cut to several sizes larger than the foot, a number of points or corners are allowed to remain along the edges, the foot, after being well swathed in bandages, is placed on the piece of hide, which is then gathered up round the foot by looping and knotting a long strip of cotton cloth or tape forward and back to the corners of the hide until all is secure and compact, as shown in the illustration on next page (Fig. 2).
The old Highland caterans shod themselves in much the same manner. We have seen the Crim-Tartars make excellent winter foot coverings from sheepskin, with the wool inwards (Fig. 1). This was cut much after the Calabrian plan, but the corners, after having slits made in them, were looped to short flat leather straps, which, when crossed forward and back over the front, were laced together with a long narrow thong of sheepskin, which served to hold a wider piece of wool-covered skin in place, as a sort of gaiter. They also make a summer shoe from soft tanned hide, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
Most of the African tribes find the skin of their sole sufficiently hard for their ordinary and daily walks, but when they expect to make long marches they invariably use some sort of artificial protection; and there is no surer sign on the frontier of the Cape Colony that the Kafirs intend to make war than to see among them a general preparation of velschoens or sandals; and often the cattle farmers on the frontier have been thus forewarned, while the Government authorities, deceived by plausible excuses, have imagined there was every prospect of a continued peace.
Various forms of sandal are in use among different tribes, but those used by the Bechuana (Fig. 1, next page) may be taken as a sufficiently useful type. The leather is sometimes rendered slightly pliable by being pounded and beaten, but very often not. The foot is planted on it, and the outline drawn, the sole being cut somewhat larger than this.
Two slits are made, one on each side the hollow of the foot, and the two ends of a piece of hide are passed up through them, as shown in Fig. 2; and in each end of this are cut two slits, as seen in Figs. 1, 2, 3, for the two parts of a thong of dressed hide to pass through.
The ends of this are passed through another piece which goes down between the great toe and the next, then passes through the sole, and is fastened sometimes by being returned through two other holes, and the divided ends passed through a hole bored “in their own parts,” as in Fig. 4, and sometimes by being simply returned only once in the manner shown in Fig. 3, which represents the very simple arrangement for tightening the side straps; in fact, a thong of hide, with several holes bored in it for its own end to pass through, may be lengthened or shortened up as conveniently as a strap and buckle, the sandal being put on or off simply by drawing the loop of the thong over the heel in the same manner as a low shoe.
