HORN OPENS JAMBOREE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20366, 21 September 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

HORN OPENS JAMBOREE.

GIFT TO CHIEF SCOUT,

ftfATABELE WARRIOR'S TRIBUTE*

A horn tvith wonderfulcarrying powers was used to herald tho 2ist anniversary of. the Boy Scout movement during thu jamboree at Arrowe Park, Birkenhead. It is the Kudu horn, from a species of antelope, which was presented many years ago to Lord Baden-Powell by a Matabela chief, and awoke the world's first scouts on Brownsea in 1907.

Horns made by native races in Africa carry a great distance, probably up to five or six miles.. They are made not only from tho horns of cows, but also from the ivory tusks of elephants. In the 15th and 16th centuries the French and Germans used very finely-carved ivory horns for hunting, and even to-day, in coma parts of South America, use is still made of tho buffalo horn for hunting, it being preferred to any other sort of horn, particularly for. woodlands', on account of its deep note and its great carrying properties over long distances.. For most practical purposes, however, the metal horn, made with mathematical precision to produce tho exact notes and tono that are wanted for coaching, hunting, and orchestral purposes, has superseded tho natural horn. But. though tho natural horn has no place in music, it still survives in religious services of the Jews, in tho shape of a special rani's horn, lightly coloured, and nearly flat, and often difiicult to blow.

In the horn's survival in this form one finds a link with Biblical times, when cornets and trumpets made of tho horn of a ram, au ibex, or an ox were used by tho ancient Hebrews for signals for announcing tho " Jubilee," for proclaiming tha new year, for tha purposes o1 war, and for giving notico by 1 tha santinels at the watch towers of tho approach of au enemy. It, w3a with trumpet* of ram's horns that tho priests blew the " long blast" that preceded tha fall of tha walls of Jericho.