It proved decisive, and Sechele remarked it was "pleasanter to be deceived than undeceived." I offered sulphur for the same purpose, but that was declined, even though a person came to the town afterward and rubbed his hands with a little before a successful trial of shooting at a mark.
I explained to my men the nature of a gun, and tried to teach them, but they would soon have expended all the ammunition in my possession.

I was thus obliged to do all the shooting myself ever afterward.

Their inability was rather a misfortune; for, in consequence of working too soon after having been bitten by the lion, the bone of my left arm had not united well.

Continual hard manual labor, and some falls from ox-back, lengthened the ligament by which the ends of the bones were united, and a false joint was the consequence.

The limb has never been painful, as those of my companions on the day of the rencounter with the lion have been, but, there being a joint too many, I could not steady the rifle, and was always obliged to shoot with the piece resting on the left shoulder.