they all advance in Indian file, until they arrive in front of the enemy, when they form in line, as well as circumstances will admit.  Their arms and accoutrements consist of a musket without a bayonet, the lock of which is covered with a piece of leopard’s or some other skin to protect it from the weather, a pouch tied round their waist containing the powder, in about twenty or thirty small boxes of light wood, each having a single charge; a small bag of loose powder hanging down on the left side; and in addition to this a keg or barrel of powder is carried for each party to replenish from when required.  Their shot is langrage, composed of pieces of iron, lead, ironstone (broken in small pieces), &c. &c., and is carried loosely in a bag.  The last of these materials is most generally used, 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