Another Trip to the Park--A Hard Day's Work--Discover a Herd--Death of
the Herd--A Furious Charge--Caught at Last--The Consequences--A
Thorough Rogue--Another Herd in High Lemon Grass--Bears--A Fight
between a Moorman and a Bear--A Musical Herd--Herd Escape--A Plucky
Buck--Death of 'Killbuck'--Good Sport with a Herd--End of the Trip
CHAPTER XI.
Excitement of Elephant-shooting--An Unexpected Visitor--A Long Run
with a Buck--Hard Work Rewarded--A Glorious Bay--End of a Hard Day's
Work--Bee-hunters--Disasters of Elk-hunting--Bran Wounded--'Old Smut's'
Buck--Boar at Hackgalla--Death of 'Old Smut'--Scenery from the
Perewelle Mountains--Diabolical Death of 'Merriman'--Scene of the
Murder
CHAPTER XII.
A Jungle Trip
CHAPTER XIII.
Conclusion
THE RIFLE AND HOUND.
CHAPTER I.
Wild Country-Dealings in the Marvellous-Enchanting Moments The Wild
Elephant of Ceylon--'Rogues'-Elephant Slaughter-Thick Jungles-Character
of the Country-Varieties of Game in Ceylon--'Battery for Ceylon
Sport'-The Elk or 'Samber Deer'-Deer-coursing.
It is a difficult task to describe a wild country so exactly, that a
stranger's eye shall at once be made acquainted with its scenery and
character by the description. And yet this is absolutely necessary, if
the narration of sports in foreign countries is supposed to interest
those who have never had the opportunity of enjoying them. The want of
graphic description of localities in which the events have occurred, is
the principal cause of that tediousness which generally accompanies the
steady perusal of a sporting work. You can read twenty pages with
interest, but a monotony soon pervades it, and sport then assumes an
appearance of mere slaughter.
Now, the actual killing of an animal, the death itself, is not sport,
unless the circumstances connected with it are such as to create that
peculiar feeling which can only be expressed by the word `sport.' This
feeling cannot exist in the heart of a butcher; he would as soon
slaughter a fine buck by tying him to a post and knocking him down, as
he would shoot him in his wild native haunts--the actual moment of
death, the fact of killing, is his enjoyment. To a true sportsman the
enjoyment of a sport increases in proportion to the wildness of the
country. Catch a six-pound trout in a quiet mill-pond in a populous
manufacturing neighbourhood, with well-cultivated meadows on either side
of the stream, fat cattle grazing on the rich pasturage, and, perhaps,
actually watching you as you land your fish: it may be sport. But catch
a similar fish far from the haunts of men, in a boiling rocky torrent
surrounded by heathery mountains, where the shadow of a rod has seldom
been reflected in the stream, and you cease to think the former fish
worth catching; still he is the same size, showed the same courage, had
the same perfection of condition, and yet you cannot allow that it was
sport compared with this wild stream. If you see no difference in the
excitement, you are not a sportsman; you would as soon catch him in a
washing tub, and you should buy your fish when you require him; but
never use a rod, or you would disgrace the hickory.
This feeling of a combination of wild country with the presence of the
game itself, to form a real sport, is most keenly manifested when we
turn our attention to the rifle. This noble weapon is thrown away in an
enclosed country. The smooth-bore may and does afford delightful sport
upon our cultivated fields; but even that pleasure is doubled when those
enclosures no longer intervene, and the wide-spreading moors and
morasses of Scotland give an idea of freedom and undisturbed nature. Who
can compare grouse with partridge shooting? Still the difference exists,
not so much in the character of the bird as in the features of the
country. It is the wild aspect of the heathery moor without a bound,
except the rugged outline of the mountains upon the sky, that gives such
a charm to the grouse-shooting in Scotland, and renders the
deer-stalking such a favourite sport among the happy few who can enjoy
it.
All this proves that the simple act of killing is not sport; if it were,
the Zoological Gardens would form as fine a field to an elephant shot as
the wildest Indian jungle.
Man is a bloodthirsty animal, a beast of prey, instinctively; but let us
hope that a true sportsman is not savage, delighting in nothing but
death, but that his pursuits are qualified by a love of nature, of noble
scenery, of all the wonderful productions which the earth gives forth in
different latitudes. He should thoroughly understand the nature and
habits of every beast or bird that he looks upon as game. This last
attribute is indispensable; without it he may kill, but he is not a
sportsman.
We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that the character of a
country influences the character of the sport. The first question,
therefore, that an experienced man would ask at the recital of a
sporting anecdote would be, `What kind of country is it?' That being
clearly described to him, he follows you through every word of your tale
with a true interest, and in fact joins in imagination in the chase.
There is one great drawback to the publication of sporting
adventures--they always appear to deal not a little in the marvellous;
and this effect is generally heightened by the use of the first person
in writing, which at all events may give an egotistical character to a
work. This, however, cannot easily be avoided, if a person is describing
his own adventures, and he labours under the disadvantage of being
criticised by readers who do not know him personally, and may,
therefore, give him credit for gross exaggeration.
