On looking at one of these sleeping-mats, the observer is apt to fancy that a vast amount of needless trouble has been taken with it--that the maker would have done his work quicker and better, and that the article itself would have looked much more elegant, had he woven the materials instead of lashing them with string. But the Kaffir has not the faintest idea of weaving, and even the primitive hand-loom, which is so prevalent in different parts of the world, is not to be found in Southern Africa. The Kaffir can dress skins as well as any European furrier. He can execute basket-work which no professional basket-maker can even imitate, much less rival. He can make spear blades and axes which are more suitable to his country than the best specimens of European manufacture. But he has not the least notion of the very simple operation of weaving threads into cloth. This ignorance of an almost universal art is the more remarkable because he can weave leather thongs and coarse hairs into elaborate ornaments, and can string beads together so as to form flat belts or even aprons. Still, such is the fact, and a very curious fact it is. When the sleeper awakes in the morning, the bed is rolled into a cylindrical form, lashed together with a hide thong, and suspended out of the way in the hut. The student of Scripture will naturally be reminded of the command issued to the paralytic man, to “take up his bed and walk,” the bed in question being the ordinary thin mattress in use in the East, which is spread flat on the ground when in use, and is rolled up and put away as soon as the sleeper rises from his couch. If a Kaffir moves from one residence to another, his wife carries his bed with her, sometimes having her own couch balanced on the top of her head, and her husband’s strapped to her shoulders. This latter mode of carrying the bed may be seen in the illustration “Dolls,” on page 33, where the woman is shown with the bed partly hidden under her kaross.