The universal sleeping-mat, made of the _bongo_ reed (_Phragmites_), is sewn rather than woven; the edge of the mat is formed of a length of peeled bamboo, to which strings are fastened at regular intervals; then these are passed through the split reeds by means of a bamboo needle. The yellow, shiny surface of the canes makes these mats very attractive when new, but they splinter easily, and do not last long as a floor-covering in European houses. They will roll up tightly, with the upper surface outward (not the reverse way, as the curves of the canes are all on one side), and are so carried on a journey, as the Angoni have them in Plate 23. Finer and softer mats are made of palm-fibre; these are really woven, as are also the _fumbas_, or sleeping-bags, used by the River natives as a protection against mosquitoes; they are woven round two ends and one side, leaving the other side open. The man gets in, draws the edges together, turns over so as to get the opening underneath him, and sleeps soundly, untroubled by ventilation, or the lack of it. Of course, the fabric is not close enough to exclude the air, but a person unaccustomed to it would find his breathing seriously impeded, and I have never been able to understand how natives are able to sleep wrapped head and all in blankets, and looking more like chrysalids than anything else. The making of bark-cloth is another vanishing industry; but formerly it was the only fabric known in many districts where cotton was not cultivated, and the other fibre-plants not utilised for weaving. The bark used is that of the fig-tree, or the _myombo_ (_Brachystegia_), which has a leaf like the ash. The hard outer bark of the tree is first taken off, and then a large sheet of the inner carefully removed, by first cutting a long upright line, and then two parallel circles. It is scraped, and then beaten with a mallet made of ebony or some other hard and heavy wood, which has its face deeply scored with lines crossing one another, so as to present almost a toothed surface. It is folded, hammered, folded to a smaller compass, and hammered again, till it is beaten out to a yard in width and a tolerably even thickness. It is usually of a terra-cotta colour, but sometimes dyed black by steeping in a certain kind of mud found in the swamps. This dye does not always last, but wears off and leaves the cloth pale grey. The dyeing is done before beating. There is also white bark-cloth, which I have not seen; it is made by burning off the hard bark from the tree, which heats and bleaches the inner. Good bark-cloth is very soft and pliable, and very warm in cold weather. Even after the introduction of English cloth, women were often seen wearing bark-cloth above their calico on cold or wet days. As already remarked, it continues to be worn ceremonially in the mysteries. IRONWORK AND WOOD-CARVING