138 THE MONKEYFOLK OF SOUTH AFRICA 



him disappear over a distant hill. He had evidently 

 mistaken us for a troop of devils. 



We crossed over the river by jumping from an over- 

 hanging branch to another on the opposite side, and gathered 

 round the gun he had cast aside. We all fingered it gingerly 

 at first, then boldly. Some of the tribe began to quarrel 

 over it, and a free fight followed. Whilst the menfolk 

 were fighting in twos, threes, and half-dozens, the women- 

 folk and children were trying to unravel the mystery of 

 that gun. One of them pulled a part of it, which clicked. 

 Presently a column of smoke belched forth from the end of 

 the gun. With a yell, we fled away to the innermost 

 recesses of a forest-clad kloof. 



When we gathered together to talk the matter over, 

 we found that ever so many of our menfolk had little leaden 

 pellets sticking in their skins. Some were seriously wounded, 

 but none were killed. It was lucky we women had carried 

 the gun some distance away from the men whilst they were 

 fighting with each other. 



I forgot to mention that one of our womenfolk got 

 badly wounded when that gun went off. Her arm was in 

 a line with the barrel, and only about a foot from the 

 muzzle when it went off. Her arm below the elbow was 

 blown clean away. The pain she suffered was awful, but 

 she got well again, for the stump healed up all right. You 

 see, we lead a healthy out-of-door life, and we don't smoke 

 and breathe bad air and eat rich food all day long, like you 

 humanfolk do ; so our blood is always pure, and our bodies 

 are strong, so when we get wounded we recover very 

 quickly. 



TRAPPED 



One day we made a raid on a farmer's mealie field, and 

 were busy eating the sweet young mealies off the cobs, when 



