But I was now
alone in the world, and it mattered little what became of me; so, driven
on by the overmastering love of adventure, which, old as I am, will
perhaps still be the cause of my death, I determined to undertake the
journey.
Accordingly I sold such stock and goods as we had upon the station,
reserving only the two best waggons and two spans of oxen. The proceeds
I invested in such goods as were then in fashion, for trading purposes,
and in guns and ammunition. The guns would have moved any modern
explorer to merriment; but such as they were I managed to do a good deal
of execution with them. One of them was a single-barrelled, smooth
bore, fitted for percussion caps--a roer we called it--which threw a
three-ounce ball, and was charged with a handful of coarse black powder.
Many is the elephant that I killed with that roer, although it generally
knocked me backwards when I fired it, which I only did under compulsion.
The best of the lot, perhaps, was a double-barrelled No. 12 shot-gun,
but it had flint locks. Also there were some old tower muskets, which
might or might not throw straight at seventy yards.
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