i Details of Dawn Drummond-Clayton’s and Bunduki’s family backgrounds and unconventional education are given in Appendices One and Two.
ii Like the gibbons, genus Hylobates, of Asia and the South American howler monkeys, genus Alouatta, the Australopithecus of Zillikian employed various cries and roars to warn of danger, ask for help, signify triumph, or issue a challenge which denoted a claim of ownership over a piece of territory. As some acoustic quality allowed these calls to be audible at distances far beyond the range of a normal human shout, Dawn and Bunduki used them for signaling purposes.
iii Information pertaining to the various types of gatahs and how they were used in the culture of the Mun-Gatah nation is given in Appendix Three.
iv Told in: BUNDUKI.
v Told in BUNDUKI AND DAWN.
vi The ‘Terrifiers’ were simple hand grenades made from hollowed out coconut shells filled with ‘Thunder Powder’. Detonation was achieved by igniting a fuse made from an inflammable cord.
vii As there was no equivalent word in the linqua franca of Zillikian, Dawn and Bunduki had said ‘Earth’ in English when speaking of their homeland. Being unaware of any other planets’ existence, the people they met believed this to be the name of the couple’s nation.
viii Some details of Beryl Snowhill’s earlier career are given in: ‘CAP’ FOG, TEXAS RANGER, MEET MR. J.G. REEDER.
ix How this came about is told in: THE AMAZONS OF ZILLIKIAN.
x Told in: SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA GOD.
xi ‘Hand’: four inches, the height being measured to the highest point of the withers.
xii Sambur: Cervus Unicolor, a species of deer originating in India.
xiii Recurved bow: one with the ends of the limbs bent back from the straight line.
xiv The dimensions of the Randall Model 12 ‘Smithsonian’ Bowie knife are given in APPENDIX ONE.
xv No pun intended, I assure you.
xvi Told in: SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA GOD.
xvii New readers can find an explanation of a ‘clip’ point in APPENDIX ONE.
xviii On Earth, one name for fulsa is ‘jerky. The meat is cured by stripping an animal’s hams in a manner that leaves a thin membrane covering on each of the approximately one inch thick segments. The portions are dipped in a strong solution of boiling brine, then smoked briefly before the curing process is completed by exposure to the sun. If done correctly, the result is a nourishing, palatable, long lasting, easily stored or transportable food.
xix As Protectress of the Quagga God, Charole’s garments had been made from gold lame mesh and her female adherents wore sandals with silver colored straps.
xx Told in: BUNDUKI AND DAWN.
xxi The Brelefs were an early type of Neanderthal Man, Homo Neanderthalensis.
xxii Duas unicas in puncta mortalis est: advice given to Ancient Roman legionaries, roughly translated as, ‘Two inches in the right spot is fatal.’
xxiii Spear point: one where the double cutting edges of the blade come together in symmetrical convex arcs.
xxiv A description of some of the methods employed by mustangers in the Old West can be read in: .44 CALIBER MAN and A HORSE CALLED MOGOLLON.
xxv In Texas during the mid-1870s, catering for outlaws and being fugitives from justice themselves, the citizens of the town called Hell had taken similar precautions against discovery. See: HELL IN THE PALO DURO and GO BACK TO HELL.
xxvi Czdkan: a type of war-hammer used by Polish horsemen during the late Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries.
xxvii Bongo: Boocercus Euryceros, the largest of the African jungle-dwelling antelopes, a deep chestnut in color, with numerous white stripes, a well developed spinal crest and large, smooth horns which form an open spiral.
xxviii Honda: the ‘business’ end of a lariat. A knotted, or spliced, eyelet about two inches in diameter and usually lined with smooth leather, through which the ‘end’ of the rope is passed to form a ‘running’ noose.
xxix Stem: in roping terminology, the portion of the lariat which is outside the honda and so does not form part of the ‘noose’.
xxx Examples of how tracks can be concealed are given in Part One, ‘The Half Breed’ of THE HALF BREED.
xxxi Riposte: in fencing terminology, a return thrust or cut after an attack.
xxxii Matador: in the terminology of bullfighting, the man who dispatches the bull with a thrust of his sword.
xxxiii The incident to which Dawn Drummond-Clayton was referring is recorded in BUNDUKI AND DAWN.
xxxiv The first occasion when the blond giant had been compelled to intervene and defend Joar-Fane from a family of Australopithecus is told in BUNDUKI.
xxxv Nemenuh: the phonetic spelling of the Comanche Indians’ name for their nation, meaning ‘The People’. Most other Indian nations referred to them as the Tshaoh, the ‘Enemy People’, because of their propensity towards horse-stealing—called ‘raiding’ by the Comanches—and warfare. Some details of the Nemenuh’s methods of horse catching and training are given in COMANCHE.
xxxvi Being caught in such a manner crippled General Jackson Baines ‘Ole Devil’ Hardin C.SA. for life. Told in the ‘The Paint” episode of THE FASTEST GUN IN TEXAS.
‘Chinning the moon’: in rodeo parlance, when a mount rears high on its hind legs and paws the air with its front hooves. A dangerous tactic because the animal might overbalance and fall backwards on to its rider. Some even learn to do this deliberately.
xxxviii Kichwa Mkubwa: Swahili for ‘Big Head’, literally ‘Head Big’.
xxxix The modern materials, excellent design and great strength of Dawn Drummond-Clayton’s and Bunduki’s sophisticated archery equipment provided the power required to penetrate the Mun-Gatahs’ hitherto invulnerable breastplates. This was because even the seventy pounds draw weight of the girl’s composite—fiberglass and wood—weapon was almost double that of the strongest all wood ‘self’ bows of the other archers on Zillikian. Another contributory factor was that the Earth couple employed the more efficient ‘cheek’ draw and not the ‘chest’ draw practiced by the local bowmen. Full descriptions of the methods used by the girl and the blond giant are given in the earlier volumes of the ‘BUNDUKI’ series. For comparison, an explanation of one style of Japanese archery and its equipment can be read in the authors ‘OLE DEVIL HARDIN’ series of biographies.
xl Details of the Amazon nation are given in APPENDIX FOUR of SACRIFICE FOR THE QUAGGA GOD.
xli The throwing stick used on Zillikian is similar to that employed by the Hopi and related Indian tribes of North America, or the war and hunting boomerangs of the Australian aborigines, but—unlike the latter—is not expected to return to the thrower if it should miss its target. This does not make it any less lethal or effective as a weapon. American author, Daniel Mannix, describes in Chapter Seven, ‘The Boomerang, The Stick That Kills’, of his book, A SPORTING CHANCE—which covers the subject thoroughly—how he has thrown one a distance of five hundred and forty feet and it still retained sufficient momentum to crack an inch thick branch of a tree.
xlii Fence cornering: rodeo terminology for bucking in a zigzag fashion. So called because it was said to resemble the meanderings of the kind of wooden rail fences sometimes erected during the Old West days of the United States of America.
xliii Manadero: the Spanish-Mexican term for the master stallion of a band of horses.
xliv While the author realizes that in this present ‘permissive’ society, he could record Dawn Drummond-Clayton’s exact words, he sees no valid reason to do so.
xlv ‘Sunfishing’: a bound during which the animal twists its body into crescents alternatively—at least, most of the time—to left or right, seeming to be trying to touch the ground with first one and then the other shoulder, as if wishing to let the sunlight hit its stomach in the process.
xlvi ‘Crawfishing’: pitching backwards instead of to the front.
xlvii ‘Pinwheeling’: undoubtedly the rarest and, arguably, most lethal kind of bucking. The animal leaps forward and upwards, turning with its feet in the air and alighting on its back.
xlviii Carvel-built: in shipbuilding terminology, where the planks of the hull are laid edge to edge and form a smooth surface; as opposed to ‘clinker-built’, where they are fitted so that they overlap one another.
xlix A ‘gaff’ is a pole, or ‘spar’, extending from the after side of the mast to support a fore-and-aft sail.
l A ‘lug’ is a four-sided sail without a boom, or lower yard, attached to an upper yard which hangs obliquely on the mast.
li A Missouri River ‘bullboat’ twenty-five feet in length, with a width of fifteen and a depth of three feet could carry up to six thousand pounds’ burden. Although smaller, those of the Cara-Bunte were proportionately as effective.
lii A ‘lateen’—a European corruption of the word, ‘Latin’—is a right-angled triangular sheet laced to a long, sloping yard and controlled by a system of blocks and tackles which allows the ship to sail against, as well as with, the wind.
liii When employed for legitimate purposes such as pearl-diving, the zaruk is sometimes called a ‘garookuh’.
liv The principal difference between the zaruk and the badan is that the stem piece of the latter is almost perpendicular and lacks the extreme rake which is characteristic of the former. The author is unable to say which style of bow is most advantageous, as each kind of vessel is equally seaworthy. We suspect that the choice was made on the personal prejudices of the respective clans’ warlords and dictated by past traditions. It is noticeable that none of the Tansha clans rivals used the zaruk.
lv Although it has no bearing on the present volume, the Cara-Buntes made their voyages to raid the northern, southern and western shores of the mainland in replicas of Arabian sambuks. Graceful, carvel-built, lateen-rigged, square-sterned and weath-erly, these large vessels have two forward raking masts, a built-up poop deck and offer far more adequate accommodation for the crews than either a zaruk or a badan.
lvi The Yung-Libs are a very early type of Cro-Magnons.
lvii The occasion is recorded in BUNDUKI.
lviii In addition to the entire coastline of the Telongas’ territory being fringed by swampland after the fashion of the Florida Everglades, the Cara-Buntes’ failure to penetrate the region was induced by the ‘Suppliers’.
lix The occasions are described in BUNDUKI AND DAWN.
lx The larger ‘plains’ sub-species of African elephant is classified Loxodonta Africana Africana. Up to twenty-four inches taller than L.A. Cyclotis, their ears are less rounded and the tusks which are bulkier and longer, curl upwards instead of being straight and parallel; an adaptation making it easier for the ‘forest’ elephants to move through thick undergrowth.
lxi The smaller sub-species of African buffalo, Syncerus Caffer Namus, known as the ‘dwarf forest buffalo’ was also very aggressive and dangerous, but it did not inhabit the jungle in the Telongas’ territory.
lxii Although the Telongas had a predilection for making love, they also held strong views regarding babies being born out of wedlock. So, to allow the former and avoid the latter, they had obtained very effective oral contraceptive tablets for use by the maidens from the ‘Suppliers’.
lxiii Cowhands in the American cattle-raising States always used a ‘burro’ if available. Should one have to leave his saddle on the ground, he placed it on its side or stood it on its head, but never laid it on its skirts.
lxiv Pike-characin: Boulengerella Lateristriga: one of the Cyprini-formes, carp, group of fish orders: Native of north-eastern South America, particularly the Amazon region, it attains a length of twenty inches and is a predator. Often lying in wait at the surface before attacking its prey, the species was a favorite quarry of the Wurka-Telonga bow-hunters.
lxv Dwarf crocodile: only surviving member of the genus Osteo-laemus, O. Tetraspis, inhabits streams of the West African forests and is an inoffensive creature which seldom exceeds six feet in length.
lxvi ‘False’ gavial: sole specimen of the genus Tomistoma, T. Schlegeli, attains a length of more than fourteen feet, feeds exclusively on fish and is found in Borneo, Malaysia and Sumatra. It is replaced by the ‘true’ gavial, Gavialis Gangeticus—which differs in some anatomical points and grows larger, but also eats little other than fish—in the rivers and large lakes of India and Burma.
lxvii No one knows who among the Seminoles was first to discover the methods by which an alligator could be captured alive by a single strong man. However, even to this day, members of that nation perform the feat.
lxviii History does not record who first discovered that massaging the collection of nerve centers under the alligator’s throat and along the chest and belly could induce a state of trance. However, a similar knowledge with regard to crocodiles was possessed in Africa and India since long before the birth of Christ. The author cannot guess why the ‘Suppliers’ had not imparted the knowledge to the Telongas.
lxix The record was two hundred and fifty-eight feet, two and three-eighths inches. The longest measured unofficial throw was two hundred and eighty-three feet, by Arep Kibiege of Kenya in 1948. However, possibly for the reasons quoted in Paragraph One, APPENDIX TWO, the international athletic authorities refused on a technicality to consider Dawn Drummond-Clayton’s—as she was at the time—throw as the women s record.
lxx Deputy Sheriff Bradford Counter employs the method adopted by Dawn Gunn in the author’s biographical work, THE SIXTEEN DOLLAR SHOOTER, but used another technique in BAD HOMBRE.
lxxi Unlike on Earth, for some reason Bunduki had not been able to determine, the elephants of Zillikian lived in patriarchal and not matriarchal family groups.
lxxii For the benefit of new readers, see APPENDIX ONE, for an explanation of the term, melombuki.
lxxiii Lai-jitsu: the fast drawing of the longer, tachi, of the samurai’s daisho, pair of swords. An explanation of how this is performed and how effective it can be in skilled hands is given in the author’s biography OLE DEVIL AT SAN JACINTO.
lxxiv The Sikhs of India use much the same kind of device. Known as a ‘chakra’ or ‘chakram’, the war-quoits were carried in decreasing sizes over the pointed peak of the warriors’ turban-helmets. They were lethal to about fifty yards, but would still inflict damage at twice that distance. In skilled hands, the Cara-Buntes’ halakas were equally effective.
lxxv Although it had been several centuries since there had been any contact between the Wurka-Telongas and the Cara-Buntes, the legends still were told about the latter. The formers hunters occasionally had seen Cara-Bunte vessels of various kinds passing by in search of a way to reach the hinterland.
lxxvi Sir Armond John Drummond-Clayton s definitive work, KNIFE FIGHTING THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, like an equally comprehensive treatise on unarmed combat techniques written by Commander James Bond, R.N.—its preparation is referred to in his biographer, Ian Fleming’s DOCTOR NO—were published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, However, being classified ‘Top Secret’, the only copies of both works are in the possession of Britain’s M.I.5 and the United States of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.
lxxvii Because of his own country’s and Britain’s Official Secrets Act, W.D. Randall, of Randall Made Knives, Orlando, Florida, has never been able to give Sir Armond John Drummond-Clayton the credit he deserves for his part in helping to develop the Model I ‘All Purpose’ fighting knife. In fact, it was only with difficulty that the author was allowed to mention it. See Appendix One.
lxxviii Judge Roy. S. Tinney, Secretary of the American Academy of Arms.
lxxix If Sir Henry Curtis’s biographer, H. Rider Haggard, knew of the son, he was too tactful to mention the matter in KING SOLOMON’S MINES or ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
lxxx Mark Counter’s history is recorded in the authors ‘Floating Outfit’ series of biographies.
lxxxi Even to this day, British Military Intelligence is reluctant to comment upon, or even acknowledge the existence of ‘Group Thirteen’.
lxxxii ‘Clip’ point: one where the back of the blade curves to meet the main cutting surface in a concave arc. In the case of the Randall Model 12 ‘Smithsonian bowie knife, the arcs ‘false’, or ‘top’ cutting edge is five and a quarter inches in length and as sharp as the main cutting surface.
lxxxiii What happened to James Bowie’s knife after his death at the conclusion of the siege at the Alamo Mission—San Antonio de Bexar, Texas-on March 6, 1836, is told in THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE. Some authorities have claimed that Bowie’s elder brother, Rezin Pleasant, was the actual designer of the knife which was made by Arkansas’ master cutler, James Black.
lxxxivMelombuki: a Masai moran—warrior—who has on four separate occasions grasped and held the tail of a hunted lion so that his companions could close in and kill it with their spears or simis—fighting knives. A man who attains the title is expected to be ready to fight anybody, or anything.
lxxxv Details of Bradford Counter’s career as a deputy sheriff are given in the authors ‘Rockabye County’ series of treatises on modern Texas law enforcement.
lxxxvi Generally a saber is used for slashing when mounted, while an epee’s primary purpose is thrusting and fighting on foot.
lxxxvii Although Sir Armond John and Lady Hazel Drummond-Clayton served in ‘Group Thirteen’ with Miss A.P. (Amelia) Benkinsop, M.A., B. Sc. (Oxon), Honorary Member, Holloway Old Girls’ Association—some details of whose career are recorded in the author’s BLONDE GENIUS, written in collaboration with Peter Clawson—their family background did not meet the specialized qualifications for Dawn to be allowed to attend Benkinsop’s Academy For The Daughters Of Gentlefolk.
Details of Clark Savage, Jr.’s life and adventures are recorded in Kenneth Robeson s extensive series of ‘DOC SAVAGE’ biographies and in DOC SAVAGE, HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer. This latter work also elaborates upon the source of the longevity pills.
lxxxix Unfortunately Doc Savage was unable to isolate the immunity element so that it could be reproduced without the added effect of increasing the recipient’s life expectancy. The latter factor, taken with the human race’s ever multiplying birthrate, would have led to Earth becoming over-populated. So it was decided that the pills were unsuitable for general use and they were never released to the public.