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New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 65, 25 July 1874, Page 9

An African chiefs umbrella is of greater importance than many people suppose. Apart from its prodigious size, its loss in battle more than equals the loss of the standard of a European commander Some ot the umbrellas are of prodigious dimensions, being no less than twenty-five feet in diameter, and twelve feet six inches in the ribs, iney are made of lance wood, and the covering is of gorgeously colored chintz, in varied sections of crimson, yellow and blue They are opened by means of pulleys and ropes, attached to the ".runner?" the operation requiring the services of three or four men. The pole or handle is of birch, and about fourteen or fifteen feet high. The umbrella used by the king ia of rioh damask, edged with gold fringe, whilst others are made of various colored silks, costing perhaps from twenty-five to thirty-five guineas. Some time before the outbreak of the war, one of these umbrellas, manufactured in Bristol for shipment to the Gold Coast, was erected in a large open space for the purpose of seeing how many it would actually accommodate m a shower. The number of men who stood under its ample covering amounted to tiro hundred.