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He was clad in the rough woollen and leathern garments worn by the frontier farmers, or boers, of that period, and carried one of those long heavy flint-lock guns, or "roers," which the Dutch-African colonist then deemed the most effective weapon in the universe. "Well met!" exclaimed Considine heartily, as he rode up.
They were the pioneers of the pioneers, who in their wanderings found a spot rich in game, in nuts and soil such a home as they had wished and they beckoned back for their families and their friends. The figure upon the rock-ledge rested upon a long, muzzle-loading, flint-lock rifle as he looked out over the valley. His legs were wrapped in crudely tanned hides made from game he had killed.
There were the family dinner-table of hewn pine, chairs made of pine saplings with, seats of rushes or woven underbark, and often in the corner a couch that would serve as an extra bed at night. Pictures of saints hung on the walls, sharing the space with a crucifix, but often having for ominous company the habitant's flint-lock and his powder-horn hanging from the beams.
Without permission of Bula Matadi on leaving the Congo, one can not sell his guns, or give them away. This is a precaution to prevent weapons falling into the hands of the native. For some reason a native with a gun alarms Bula Matadi. Just on the other bank of the river the French, who do not seem to fear the black brother, sell him flint-lock rifles, as many as his heart desires.
Here, amid the promiscuous firing of long flint-lock guns and quaint ancient pistols, such as one sees in curiosity shops at home, a further demonstration was held, our carriers themselves infected by the popular enthusiasm, seeming also to lose their senses.
The English is clean, compact, dignified, almost perfect. But it is observable that it is not prominently better than it is in the above paragraph, which was a product of the primitive flint-lock: "How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and hastening to death, and at the same time we are communing with immortality?
On the walls and in corners were several flint-lock guns, and one or two of the short light javelins used by the Kafirs for throwing in battle, named assagais. Three small doors led into three inner rooms, in which the entire family slept. There were no other apartments, the kitchen being an outhouse.
They carry a rusty old weather-beaten flint-lock gun, with a barrel that is longer than themselves; it has no sights on it, it will not carry farther than a brickbat, and is not half so certain.
Why he should wish for a flint-lock rifle was an unanswerable question, but someone wanted that sort of a gun or it would not have been made, and my father’s letters showed him to be a man of sentiment, and impractical, just the sort of fellow to use a flint-lock when he might just as well have had a modern breech-loading high-power rifle. “I believe you’ve hit it, dad.
Their costume was a buckskin shirt with abundance of fringes, buckskin pantaloons with short leggins, a gay sash, and a cap of fox-fur. Their arms consisted of flint-lock guns, hatchets, and butcher-knives. Their ponies were small, but as hardy as themselves.
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