HOW TO GET AT THE TONGUE. 55 



deliberate. The thing could be done was indeed done 

 every day by ignorant savages. What a duffer I am, I 

 thought, while smoking, to have tugged and pulled sense- 

 lessly and stupidly, instead of sitting down first and applying 

 to the great Genius of tobacco to stimulate invention, to 

 show me how to tackle the horns of my dilemma ! Hurrah 

 for tobacco, the great revealer ! Take the bull by the horns 

 plenty of leverage to them twist his head round the way 

 I want him to turn, as far as possible, stick a horn well in 

 the ground, to hold his head from going back, and a strain 

 in the desired direction will be established along the whole 

 length of his spine, like a spring cable ; catch him by the 

 hind-leg and throw him over ! It is " as easy as falling off a 

 floating log." 



Now for getting at his tongue ! Perhaps some reader inno- 

 cently thinks there could not be any trick about getting at 

 that. " You have only to open his mouth, you know." Well, 

 try it ! I did. Took his upper lip in one hand and his 

 beard in the other and pulled with all my might, but open 

 his mouth I could not. Grim death had shut it too hard and 

 fast for my strength to avail. I broke the point of my good 

 bowie between his jaws, trying to pry his mouth open with 

 it, then a corner off the blade of my tomahawk. Then I 

 very faintly praised "everything an inch high and an 

 hour old." At last I cut the bull's throat, put my hand 

 into the opening, pulled his tongue through, cut it off, and 

 gathering up my spoils and tricks, went to camp rejoicing in 

 success. 



