The cattle are cared for by the men, and women are not allowed to engage in the hunt for wild animals. The cattle among the mountain and sandstone tribes are of a fine stock, but those of the tribes in the alluvia, like their owners, are small and sickly. The African pays more attention to his weapons of offensive warfare than he does to his wives; but in many instances he is quite skilful in the handicrafts. "The Ishogo people are noted throughout the neighboring tribes for the superior quality and fineness of the _bongos_, or pieces of grass-cloth, which they manufacture. They are industrious and skilful weavers. In walking down the main street of Mokenga, a number of _ouandjas_, or houses without walls are seen, each containing four or five looms, with the weavers seated before them weaving the cloth. In the middle of the floor of the _ouandjay_ a wood-fire is seen burning; and the weavers, as you pass by, are sure to be seen smoking their pipes, and chatting to one another whilst going on with their work. The weavers are all men, and it is men also who stitch the _bongos_ together to make _denguis_ or robes of them; the stitches are not very close together, nor is the thread very fine, but the work is very neat and regular, and the needles are of their own manufacture. The _bongos_ are very often striped, and sometimes made even in check patterns; this is done by their dyeing some of the threads of the warp, or of both warp and woof, with various simple colors; the dyes are all made of decoctions of different kinds of wood, except for black, when a kind of iron ore is used. The _bongos_ are employed as money in this put of Africa. Although called grass-cloth by me, the material is not made of grass, but of the delicate and firm cuticle of palm leaflets, stripped off in a dexterous manner with the fingers."[86] Nearly all his mechanical genius seems to be exhausted in the perfection of his implements of war, and Dr. Livingstone is of the opinion, that when a certain perfection in the arts is reached, the natives pause. This, we think, is owing to their far remove from other nations. Livingstone says,--