quarter of a mile I was very fast. I knew nearly every cow's
name, and could whistle and drive a herd of cattle like a Caffre. The
one thing from which I suffered was the tenderness of my feet. My boots
had been worn out long since, and my feet, from having worn shoes all my
life, were very tender; but each day they became harder, though I often
had to stop and sit down when I had trodden on a sharp stone. My only
suit of clothes was worn out, but I had made a set of what the Caffres
considered clothes, but were merely strips of goat's-skin about a foot
long, fastened to a leather strap round my waist. This absence of dress
I found caused me to be too hot in the warm weather and too cold in the
early mornings and in the cold weather; but I hardened under the
conditions, and soon did not mind it.

There was an amusement that I and my two companions carried on which I
afterwards found very useful. This was to procure two or three straight
canes about five feet long: one end of these we used to cover with clay,
we then stood opposite each other, and danced and jumped about, and then
suddenly threw these at, each other, using them like an assagy. At
first the Caffres used to hit me at nearly every shot, and I never
touched them; but after considerable practice I became as expert as they
were, and could spring on one side so as just to avoid the blow, or
throw myself down, or turn the spear aside with my shield, which was an
oval-shaped piece of ox-hide. At about thirty paces from each other we
could never hit one another, and then we closed in till one of us was
hit. We used to keep a score on a stick of the number of hits against
each of us, a notch in the stick being the mark. In after years, when
it was a matter of life and death, the training and practice I had
gained in my boyhood was of vital importance to me in avoiding an
assagy, when one was thrown at me, and my dexterity in throwing one soon
became known among the tribe with which I lived. The things I could
accomplish with the assagy were the following. I could throw an assagy
sixty paces, which, for a boy, was very good, but two or three of the
men could throw the same assagy ninety paces. At forty paces I could
hit a mark as big as a man's head about every other shot. I could throw
the assagy either overhand or underhand, quivering it at the same time.
If thrown overhand, the hand was held above the shoulder, and the arm
from the hand to the elbow