“Be careful, sir,” said the man, “it’s very strong.”
“Ah!” said the colonel, “when you’re as old a soldier as I am you’ll be able to take your ‘tot’ neat.” And with that he tossed it down.
The change that came over his face was marvellous! The smiles were replaced by a look of agonised surprise. He coughed and spluttered, and ejaculated: “Shoot the blackguard; he’s poisoned me!” Then he rushed to the creek and drank more water in ten minutes than he had drunk in the ten previous years. “What have you given the colonel?” I asked the man.
“Perry & Davis’s Pain-killer,” he replied. “Will you try some, sir?”
I put my tongue to the mouth of the bottle and then said, “No, I’m blowed if I do.” For the stuff was like liquid fire, and was hot enough to burn the entrails out of a brass monkey, and if applied externally would have blistered the halo from a plaster saint. It also claimed to cure everything. In that it lied, for it did not cure the colonel’s propensity for ration rum, although I must admit it made him very careful for some time to sample his tot before he swallowed it.
CHAPTER XII
LOST IN THE NEW ZEALAND BUSH
In spinning this yarn I wish to warn all new chums that, no matter how clever you may fancy yourself to be, you must, when you enter a bush, keep all your senses on deck, or you will run the chance of finding yourself bushed just as easily as the greenest tenderfoot ever exported. True, an old hand will, as a rule, pull through, while the greenhorn will go under; but yet the number of old bushmen who have been lost and who have died is very great, and no one, no matter how experienced he is, or what his training has been, has a right to enter the bush without taking every precaution. This was driven into me very early in my frontier education, and I have saved myself frequently if not from death, yet from many hardships, by always ascertaining I had sufficient of the indispensable articles about me, without which no man should enter the forest or wilderness.
Perhaps, right here, I may enumerate them. In a dry country a man should always carry a water-bag or bottle, and see that it is in good order and full; he should never stir without plenty of matches, carried in a damp-proof box or well-corked bottle, a flint and steel, a burning-glass, or some means of making a fire. A tomahawk and sheath knife are indispensable; and of course, in Africa and countries where there are lions, etc., see that you have plenty of ammunition with you—remember you may want to signal with your rifle—and if possible shove a couple of ship biscuits into your haversack: you may want them, and they do not weigh much.