John,

I unfortunatly know very little about this gun (as you probably understood, I'm not even sure if it was my great grandfathers, or his fathers, or even his fathers fathers or even older?!?!?), and those who might have known are dead a decade ago.

But now that I think about it, I guess it has to be older than my great grandfathers since he was born around 1880, and thus would have had a more modern pistol.

As for the "pebble board", it is as you guess from Africa. A so-called Awale board, which is one of the oldest board games know to man that is still played today.

Erik