ed, as it is procured with facility, being found
lying in great quantities on the surface of the earth. They load their
muskets with a large charge of both powder and shot. In their buckskin
belts they carry from six to twenty knives of various lengths, together
with a cutlass or bill-hook, the former for cutting off heads, and the
latter for clearing their way through the underwood. On arriving near
the enemy, they cut a path transversely in front of those before
mentioned, in which path they form their line, within twenty or thirty
paces of the enemy, having a little brushwood in front for their
protection. They then immediately commence firing through the
intermediate bush. So soon as one of either party observes an opponent
fall, he rushes forward and seizes him by the throat, when with great
dexterity he separates the head from the body by means of one of his
knives, and runs off with it to lay it at the feet of his captain.
After the action is over, the captain collects all the heads that he
has received, puts them into bowls, and causes them to be presented to
the chief of the army.

I cannot take leave of this subject, or of the scenes to which it
relates, without reverting to the name of Captain Hutchison, a sharer
in the dangers and the glories of the war, and one to whom I am
indebted for many valuable particulars, and for an anxious and steady
friendship, upon which I shall always look back with satisfaction and
gratitude. Very lately--indeed while these memoirs have been in
preparation for the press--the painful intelligence of his death has
reached me. I had been favoured by a visit from him since his return to
England, after an absence of seventeen years in Africa, and anticipated
shortly to have had that gratification renewed, looking forward to our
meeting with something like the anticipations of a veteran, who hopes,
in the society of some ancient and well-beloved comrade, "to fight his
battles o'er again!" But these pleasurable dreams of life are not at
our own disposal, and we must submit to the will of that Power in whose
hands are the agencies of all the elements, of which man is but a
perishable compound. My acquaintance with Captain Hutchison commenced
under circumstances which cannot easily be obliterated from my memory,
and ripened into friendship almost unconsciously. I speak of him as I
knew him, and even my partiality, heightened by my regret, cannot much
exaggerate his merits. He was a brav