us battles, onslaughts,
massacres, or stormings, in which all the active part of his life had
been spent, actually seemed to blaze up and give forth real fire. His
breast was covered with spear wounds, and he also had two very severe
spear wounds on his head; but he boasted that no single man had ever
been able to touch him with the point of a spear. It was in grand
_melees_, where he would have sometimes six or eight antagonists, that
he had received these wounds. He was a great general, and I have heard
him criticise closely the order and conduct of every battle of
consequence which had been fought for fifty years before my arrival in
the country. On these occasions the old "martialist" would draw on the
sand the plan of the battle he was criticising and describing; and, in
the course of time I began to perceive that, before the introduction of
the musket, the art of war had been brought to great perfection by the
natives: when large numbers were engaged in a pitched battle, the order
of battle resembled, in a most striking manner, some of the most
approved orders of battle of the ancients. Since the introduction of
fire-arms the natives have entirely altered their tactics, and adopted
a system better adapted to the new weapon and the nature of the
country.

My old friend had a great hatred for the musket. He said that in
battles fought with the musket there were never so many men killed as
when, in his young days, men fought hand to hand with the spear: then a
good warrior would kill six, eight, ten, or even twenty men in a single
fight. For when once the enemy broke and commenced to run, the
combatants being so close together, a fast runner would knock a dozen
on the head in a short time; and the great aim of these fast-running
warriors, of whom my old friend had been one, was to chase straight on
and never stop, only striking one blow at one man, so as to cripple
him, in order that those behind should be sure to overtake and finish
him. It was not uncommon for one man, strong and swift of foot, when
the enemy were fairly routed, to stab with a light spear ten or a dozen
men, in such a way as to ensure their being overtaken and killed. On
one occasion of this kind my old tutor had the misfortune to stab a
running man in the back: he did it of course scientifically, so as to
stop his running; and as he passed him by he perceived it was his
wife's brother, who was finished immediately by the men close behind. I
shoul