Thus, the visible marks of difference between the cape glove and the lamb glove, so-named, are in the weight of the stock, and in the fact that the cape, when colored, is dyed through the skin, instead of merely on the grain surface.
German tanners have been the largest converters of lamb and sheep skins into cape leather by the napa tannage, which is an alum process. And it is the German stock which, until recently, was chiefly used in the American-made cape gloves. In the year 1913, however, several American tanners devised a chrome cape tannage, which appears to be even superior to the napa process, and possesses the added merit that it may be cleansed in water free of alkali of any temperature up to 212° Fahrenheit. It is this leather—really an American discovery—which goes into the gloves popularly known as washable capes. Since the outbreak of the European War, in 1914, chrome tanning has been further improved in this country; and as real Cape of Good Hope leather is used, the United States is producing to-day the best cape gloves ever known, and the German tanned napa cape is fast being discarded.
While mocha is made from skins grown in far distant lands, mocha gloves are distinctly of American origin. With the march of civilization westward in the United States, and the disappearance of the antelope from the western plains of North America some thirty-five years ago, a skin was sought by glove manufacturers in this country to take the place of the antelope, which was used in making a glove in those days known as doeskin. After patient search, and much experimenting with various species of skins and different tanning processes, a tannage was perfected for the skin of the Arabian hair sheep which produced the strong, but soft, velvety finished mocha.
The skin derives its name, no doubt, from Mocha, a seaport town of Arabia on the Red Sea, whence, it is said, these skins were first brought. The Mocha hair sheep is a distinct type, and is not a species resulting from cross breeding between the Mocha goat and a kind of wool sheep, as often has been stated. While the Mocha goat and the Mocha sheep herd together, they do not interbreed. The mocha market of the world is Aden, at the southern end of Arabia. The buyers here keep native collectors at the chief points to which skins are conveyed by caravans. These points are Moka, Berbera, Bulhar, Djibouti and Zeylah in Africa, and Hodeidah in Arabia. The skins are sorted and graded according to size, weight and condition; then they are baled, about three hundred in a lot. First, however, they are sun-dried, and are treated with naphthaline to protect them from damage by worms.