HORN OPENS JAMBOREE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 14, 1 October 1929, Page 6

HORN OPENS JAMBOREE

GIFT TO CHIEF SCOUT MATABELE WARRIOR ’S tribute A horn with the most wonderful carrying powers was used to herald the 21st. anniversary of the Boy Scout movement during the jamboree at A l '- rowo Park, Birkenhead. It is tire Kudu born, from a species of antelope, which was presented many years ago to Lord Baden-Potveli by a Matabelc chief and awoke the world’s frrst scouts otr Brownsea irr 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 the horns <of cows, but also from the ivory tusks of elephants. In the 15th and Kith centuries the French and Germans used very finely-carved . ivory horns for hunting, and even today, in some parts of South America, use is still made of the buffalo horn for hunting, it being preferred to any other sort of horn, particularly for woodlands, on account of its deep note and its groat carrying properties over long distances. For most practical purposes, however, the metal horn, made with mathematical precision to produce the exact notes and tone that are wanted for coaching, hunting, alrd orchestral purposes, has superseded the natural horn. But though tiro natursll horn has no plq.ee in music, it still survives in religious services of the Jews, in the slpipe of a special ram’s horn, lightly coloured, and nearly flat, and often difficult to blow. In the horn’s survival in this form ono finds a link with Biblical times, when cornets and trumpets made ol the ho.ru of a ram, aU ibex, or an ox were used by Ihe ancient Hebrews for signals for announcing the/" Jubilee, ” for proclaiming the new year, for the purposes of war, and for giving notice by thq sentinels at the watch towers of the approach of an enemy. It was with trumpets of ram’s horns that the priests blow the "long blast” that preceded the fall of the walls of Jericho.