534 MILITARY FORCE. — MODE OF WARFARE. — WEAPONS. 
disobedience, was known. This council or assembly of chieftains, is 
called a piiclio (peecho). 
Of the idea of soldiery, or a body of men trained exclusively to 
arms, or of any corps in the^form of a standing army, they are totally 
ignorant. Every male in the nation, is accustomed from his youth, 
to the use of the hassagay ; and he never leaves his home without 
taking one or more of these weapons in his hand. This is a custom 
which the life of a Bichuana renders doubly necessary, both for his 
personal defence against straggling parties of a hostile tribe, and for 
the purpose of killing such game as may chance to come in his way. 
Every man is therefore so much a soldier, that all the nation are 
equally prepared for warfare, and are equally acquainted with the 
mode in which it is conducted. All persons capable of throwing the 
hassagay, are liable, whenever occasion may require, to be called out 
by the Chief and sent on warlike expeditions, whatever may be their 
rank or employment : nor is such a requisition ever received but with 
ready obedience ; as any hesitation would be, in a superior, highly 
disgraceful, and, in an inferior, severely punishable. 
Their warfare consists rather in treacherously surprising their 
enemy, and in secretly carrying off their cattle, than in open and 
courageous attack or in any regular combat. Their stratagems have 
in view, rather to fall upon the objects of their hostility during their 
sleep, to invade their country unexpectedly, or to out-number them^ 
than to meet them in open day face to face, or to fight bravely on 
equal terms. But if neither honor nor glory, agreeably to European 
notions of them, attend these petty wars ; neither do streams of 
human blood stain their fields of" battle : in their humble way, they 
boast as much of having killed six men in a single rencounter, as 
civilized nations do, of as many thousands. 
In their warlike expeditions they usually carry shields of thick 
hide from three to four feet long; but during the whole of my 
travels in these countries I never saw them in their hands on any 
other occasion. Neither have I ever seen them carrying a bow and 
arrows ; although they sometimes, yet rarely, are said to obtain these 
from the Bushmen by barter with hassagays. But it is probable that 
