He Could Not Rest Without
Them, And Was Continually Offering Me Something Of His Own In Exchange
For Them; But
Though I soon grew tired of looking at them I refused to
part with them, either because his anxiety to
Have them gave them a
fictitious value in my sight, or because it was pleasing to be able to
inflict a little pain on him in return for the many smarts I had
suffered at his hands. At length one day, finding me still unmoved, he
all at once offered to teach me to shoot and to allow me the use of
one of the guns in exchange for the pictures. I could hardly believe
my good fortune: it would have surprised me less if he had offered to
give me his horse with "saddle and bridle also."
As soon as the drawings were in his hand he took me to our gun-room
and gave me a quite unneeded lesson in the art of loading a gun - first
so much powder, then a wad well rammed down with the old obsolete
ramrod; then so much shot and a second wad and ramming down; then a
percussion cap on the nipple. He then led the way to the plantation,
and finding two wild pigeons sitting together in a tree, he ordered me
to fire. I fired, and one fell, quite dead, and that completed my
education, for now he declared he was not going to waste any more time
on my instruction.
The gun he had told me to use was a single-barrel fowling-piece, an
ancient converted flintlock, the stock made of an iron-hard black wood
with silver mountings. When I stood it up and measured myself by it I
found it was nearly two inches taller than I was, but it was light to
carry and served me well: I became as much attached to it as to any
living thing, and it was like a living being to me, and I had great
faith in its intelligence.
My chief ambition was to shoot wild duck. My brother shot them in
preference to anything else: they were so much esteemed and he was so
much commended when he came in with a few in his bag that I looked on
duck-shooting as the greatest thing I could go in for. Ducks were
common enough with us and in great variety; I know not in what country
more kinds are to be found. There were no fewer than five species of
teal, the commonest a dark brown bird with black mottlings; another,
very common, was pale grey, the plumage beautifully barred and
pencilled with brown and black; then we had the blue-winged teal, a
maroon-red duck which ranges from Patagonia to California; the ringed
teal, with salmon-coloured breast and velvet-black collar; the
Brazilian teal, a lovely olive-brown and velvet-black duck, with
crimson beak and legs. There were two pintails, one of which was the
most abundant species in the country; also a widgeon, a lake duck, a
shoveller duck, with red plumage, grey head and neck, and blue wings;
and two species of the long-legged whistling or tree duck.
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