--Unless your ammunition is so kept as to be
accessible in the confusion of an attack, the fortifications I have just
described would be of little service. If the guns are all, or nearly all,
of the same bore, it is simple enough to have small bags filled with
cartridges, and also papers with a dozen caps in each. Buck-shot and
slugs are better than bullets, for the purposes of which we are speaking.
Bows and arrows might render good service. The Chinese, in their junks,
when they expect a piratical attack, bring up baskets filled with stones
from the ballast of the ship, and put them on deck ready at hand. They
throw them with great force and precision: the idea is not a bad one.
Boiling water and hot sand, if circumstances happened to permit their
use, are worth bearing in mind, as they tell well on the bodies of naked
assailants. In close quarters, thrust, do not strike; and recollect that
it is not the slightest use to hit a negro on the head with a stick, as
it is a fact that his skull endures a blow better than any other part of
his person. In picking out the chiefs, do not select the men that are the
most showily ornamented, for they are not the chiefs; but the biggest and
the busiest. A good horseman will find a powerful weapon at hand by
unhitching his stirrup leather and attached stirrup from the saddle. I
know of a case where this idea saved the rider.
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