was vertical when the assagy left the hand.
When thrown underhand, the back of the hand was down, and the arm from
the hand to the elbow was horizontal when the spear left the hand. This
underhand throwing was very effective in taking your adversary by
surprise; for if you jumped about quickly and made feints, pretending to
throw overhand, then suddenly throwing underhand, he very often could
not dodge quickly enough to escape the weapon.

I never left my hut without one or two assagies and a knob-kerrie in my
hand; for close to our kraal there were leopards, hyaenas, and other
animals that were very dangerous.

There was one accomplishment that I had acquired from my companions that
I had thought about night and day, and which I found very fascinating.
This was "spooring," as the English and Dutch in South Africa call it;
that is, telling by the footprints what animals have passed over the
ground, when they passed, and at what pace. This study is quite an art,
and I occupied many months in arriving at even a superficial knowledge
of the subject. Although I of course had no opportunity of learning
arithmetic or any of those things that boys learn in English schools,
yet I had my brain exercised by such studies as spooring and the
observation necessary to enable me to practise the art. To spoor well
it is necessary to know many things that appear at first sight to have
nothing to do with the question. One of the things to learn was to
break off branches of various sizes from different trees, to place these
in the sunshine and in the shade, and then to notice how long it took
for these leaves and branches to look withered or otherwise. The
smaller the branch the sooner it withered, and in the sun it withered
sooner than in the shade. Then some trees, the wood of which was hard,
would look fresh for a long time, whereas soft wood would soon show
signs of withering. If the day was moist or wet, the branch that would
dry on a sunny day would look fresh after the same interval of time. I
used to take great pleasure in finding out these things, and Inyoni and
Tembile used to break branches in the bush one day, and then take me to
see them afterwards, and get me to guess how long a time had elapsed
since they broke them. Of course we knew nothing about hours, but we
used to point in the sky and say, "The sun was there yesterday, or
to-day, when you broke this off the tree."

In this part of Africa the dew falls very