J3 A TLA PINS. 35 



garrison are well aware. It is possessed of extra- 

 ordinary vitality, and, further, will assume death if 

 no other means of escape presents itself. 



About midday we were visited by a hunting 

 party of Batlapins. Their success was apparent 

 from the number of kooran and other small game 

 which they had with them. The only weapons 

 that I observed among the crowd were knob- 

 kerries. These sticks are of the thickness of the 

 first joint of a trout rod, about two feet long, and 

 terminate in a knob, varying in size from a duck's 

 egg to a man's fist. With this implement they are 

 wonderfully adroit up to thirty yards, for their skill 

 in marksmanship would frequently bring shame upon 

 many a would-be sportsman armed with a gun. 



These people are a happy-go-lucky, devil-may- 

 care lot ; they had many a joke to crack among them- 

 selves, probably at my expense, and chaffed each other 

 most unmercifully on the bad skill displayed by some 

 of them in their late hunt. But, sharp and pointed 

 as their jokes evidently were, none lost their temper, 

 thus teaching a lesson that could often be well followed 

 by white men. Our attendants received these visitors 

 with the hospitality they invariably extend to all 



D 2 



