While mocha is made from skins grown in far distant lands, mocha gloves are distinctly of American origin. With the march of civilization westward in the United States, and the disappearance of the antelope from the western plains of North America some thirty-five years ago, a skin was sought by glove manufacturers in this country to take the place of the antelope, which was used in making a glove in those days known as doeskin. After patient search, and much experimenting with various species of skins and different tanning processes, a tannage was perfected for the skin of the Arabian hair sheep which produced the strong, but soft, velvety finished mocha. The skin derives its name, no doubt, from Mocha, a seaport town of Arabia on the Red Sea, whence, it is said, these skins were first brought. The Mocha hair sheep is a distinct type, and is not a species resulting from cross breeding between the Mocha goat and a kind of wool sheep, as often has been stated. While the Mocha goat and the Mocha sheep herd together, they do not interbreed. The mocha market of the world is Aden, at the southern end of Arabia. The buyers here keep native collectors at the chief points to which skins are conveyed by caravans. These points are Moka, Berbera, Bulhar, Djibouti and Zeylah in Africa, and Hodeidah in Arabia. The skins are sorted and graded according to size, weight and condition; then they are baled, about three hundred in a lot. First, however, they are sun-dried, and are treated with naphthaline to protect them from damage by worms. In the vernacular of the trade, these skins are referred to as white-heads, black-heads and red-heads. They are thus classified in reference to the color of the hair on the heads of the animals, the bodies being black and white, red and white, or all white. However, as the head colors denote a type of skin with more or less well defined characteristics, these designations are more scientific than would appear. For glove leather the black-heads rank first in quality, the white-heads second, and the red-heads third. The black-head type, which comes principally from the African districts mentioned, is more distinctly a hair skin than the other two types, and has a tighter, firmer texture. With the white-heads, which are chiefly Arabian skins, the hair is of a more woolly character and the fibre of the skin is looser. This last is also true of the red-heads, in which these elements are even more pronounced. Certain other kinds of sheep skins—notably those found in the district between Cairo and Khartum, known as “Sudans”—have been adapted for the manufacture of mocha leather. These yield a much larger spread, coarser fibre skin than the mocha hair sheep; but when tanned by the mocha process, sudans sufficiently resemble the mocha to be sold for that article—except to the expert.