From "Sketches in Mafeking and East Africa." By permission of Messrs. Smith & Elder.
On picking up the leaf we found it was damp, and smelled of native beer. The short steps showed that the women were carrying loads. So we guessed that according to the custom they had been carrying pots of native beer on their heads, the mouths of the pots being stopped up with bunches of leaves. One of these leaves had fallen out; but we found it ten yards off the track, which showed that at the time it fell a wind was blowing. There was no wind now, i.e., seven o'clock, but there had been one about five o'clock.
So we guessed from all these little signs that a party of women and boys had brought beer during the night from the village 15 miles away and had taken it to the enemy on the hills, arriving there soon after six o'clock.
The men would probably start to drink the beer at once (as it goes sour in a few hours), and would, by the time we could get there, be getting sleepy and keeping a bad look-out, so we should have a favourable chance of looking at their position.
We accordingly followed the women's track, found the enemy, made our observations and got away with our information without any difficulty.
And it was chiefly done on the evidence of that one leaf. So you see the importance of noticing even a little thing like that.
INSTANCES OF DEDUCTION.
Mr. Tighe Hopkins writing in "World's Work" describes how by noticing very small signs detectives have discovered crimes.
In one case a crime had been committed and a stranger's coat was found which gave no clue to the owner. The coat was put into a stout bag and beaten with a stick. The dust was collected from the bag and examined under a powerful magnifying glass and was found to consist of fine sawdust which showed that the owner of the coat was probably a carpenter, or sawyer, or joiner. The dust was then put under a more powerful magnifying glass—called a microscope—and it was then seen that it also contained some tiny grains of gelatine and powdered glue. These things are not used by carpenters or sawyers, so the coat was shown to belong to a joiner, and the police got on the track of the criminal.