numbering from twenty to two hundred troopers, armed with assegai, dagger, and shield, and carrying a waterskin and dried meat for a three days' ride, sufficient to scour the length of the low land. The honest fellows are not so anxious to plunder as to ennoble themselves by taking life: every man hangs to his saddle bow an ostrich[1] feather—emblem of truth—and the moment his javelin has drawn blood, he sticks it into his tufty poll with as much satisfaction as we feel when attaching a medal to our shell-jackets. It is by no means necessary to slay the foe in fair combat: Spartan-like, treachery is preferred to stand-up fighting; and you may measure their ideas of honour, by the fact that women are murdered in cold-blood, as by the Amazulus, with the hope that the unborn child may prove a male. The hero carries home the trophy of his prowess,[2] and
- ↑ Amongst the old Egyptians the ostrich feather was the symbol of truth. The Somal call it "Bal," the Arabs "Rish"; it is universally used here as the sign and symbol of victory. Generally the white feather only is stuck in the hair; the Isa are not particular in using black when they can procure no other. All the clans wear it in the back hair, but each has its own rules; some make it a standard decoration, others discard it after the first few days. The learned have an aversion to the custom, stigmatizing it as pagan and idolatrous; the vulgar look upon it as the highest mark of honour.
- ↑ This is an ancient practice in Asia as well as in Africa. The Egyptian temples show heaps of trophies placed before the monarchs as eyes or heads were presented in Persia. Thus in 1 Sam. xviii. 25, David brings the spoils of 200 Philistines, and shows them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son-in-law. Any work upon the subject of Abyssinia (Bruce, book 7, chap. 8), or the late Afghan war, will prove that the custom of mutilation, opposed as it is both to Christianity and to Al-Islam, is still practised in the case of hated enemies and infidels; and De Bey remarks of the Cape Kafirs, "Victores cæsis excidunt τα αιδοια, quæ exsiccata regi afferunt."
