Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

PARODY.

ON CHILDE HAROLD'S SONG OF THE SULIOTES.

Oh, Duca! oh, Duca! thy sty on the hills

Gives hope to the sportsman and promise of kills;
True lovers of sport, all arise at the cry,

"Dekho! gala sahib gala: "-This day he must die!

Say, who are so blest as the huntsmen who ride
On the ground at which milksops too often have shied?
They care not a d-n for a house, or a home,
But betimes sally forth through the jungle to roam.

Shall the sons of old England, thus exiled afar,
Not enjoy the best sport in the land where they are?
For your guns so unerring I care not a fig;
What mark is so fair as the rump of a pig?

The Deccan produces this four-footed race;

For a time they abandon their styes for the chase;

But those spears that are bright must be crimson with gore E'er the Duca is slain, and the battle is o'er.

Then the huntsman of Nuggur, who dwells by the hills,
And tells the pale griffin of charges and spills,
Shall return into camp, and have one story more,
Of the pace of the sow-of the pluck of the boar.

I ask not the pleasures the rifle supplies,
With my spear I will follow the boar as he flies;
Will bag the grey hog with his long bristly hair,
And many a sow from her offspring will tear.

I love the fierce look of the hog when at bay,

With a firm steady hand, let him come when he may;

Let him charge, let him rip, let him grunt, let him foam;
He sooner or later must find his long home.

Oh, remember the moment the Duca was slain,

How he foamed, charged, and fell when exhausted with pain; The number we killed-the chops that we shared,

The large ones we slaughtered-the squeakers we spared.

I talk not of courage, I talk not of fear;

But the fearless are ever the first for the spear;

Since the days of Mahomet, the Deccan ne'er saw Any sport half so glorious as hunting the boar. Nuggur, Oct., 1831.

TIGER SHOOTING IN THE SOUTHERN
MAHRATTA COUNTRY.

SIR,
I have the pleasure of send-
ing you a journal of a few days'
sport in the Southern Mahratta
Country, which may serve to fill
up a vacant leaf of your Maga-
zine.

Sept. 10th.

LAWRY TODD.

Word brought in this morning of four tigers marked down, in a nullah, a few miles from our encampment. All the preliminaries being arranged, we took up our position opposite a pass, which the tigers must cross in their way to their stronghold in the hills. After half an hour of tedious suspense the cry of the beaters, from a faint indistinct sound, came echoing shrilly up the nullah. Every rustle was listened to with breathless attention, when a rush from the jungle on the opposite bank was answered by a hearty laugh, which all our caution could not restrain; instead of the noble form of a tiger, the grizzly muzzle of an old mangy bear was pushed slowly through the bushes to survey the enemy. One glance glance at the elephant was enough for him. Not daring either to advance towards us or retreat to the beaters, he threw himself down a precipitous bank into a dry tank with the most uncouth activity, his grey snout appearing at intervals where his tail ought to be, until a projecting tree put a stop to his unwonted evolutions. We had hardly time to recover our gravity when a whisper from the mahout told us nobler game was coming, and the next instant a tigress in all the pride of her beauty was gliding by us.

"By Heavens, she's missed!' muttered my companion, as she disappeared in a thick jungle, without giving a sign of being hit. She did not take the slightest notice of our shots, and we gave her up as lost. We had hardly reloaded before a tiger, not quite full grown, dashed by, roaring at the sight of the elephant, as if he anticipated his reception. Two short growls at each shot, and a broken leg dragging after him as he got into cover, made us feel certain of him at all events. Directly after came a third roaring like the last; but the elephant, who is never very steady, now got so frightened that he fairly turned tail, and we could not get a shot.

Having learned from the beaters that the fourth tiger had broken away in another direction, we began a search for the wounded

one.

Close to the bush where she had been last seen lay the tigress stretched at full length, and quite dead. Both balls had passed through her, and she must have dropped the instant we lost sight of her, as she was shot through the heart. A little farther on the stifled growling of the wounded tiger from a thick bush guided us to the spot. He would not stir till the elephant had torn away every branch which concealed him, when he crawled out in a crippled state, grinning most savagely, but too weak to charge. Four balls immediately rolled him over, apparently finished, when, to our astonishment, he got up again and gained a small patch of jungle. A ball under the eye, which broke his jaw, brought him out into the plain once more, when a general volley from the

howdah dropped him dead, literally cut to pieces.

Sept. 18th.-While at breakfast this morning news arrived of three tigers surrounded six miles from the village. They lay in an open nullah, skirted by very thick low jungle, and were beat towards us without any difficulty. The first, a very large old tigress, came up facing the elephant, and being severely hit, turned back, and laid up in the nullah. She was immediately followed by two well grown cubs, about a year old, who passed at a long gallop. The elephant behaved very ill, and wheeled round so rapidly, that it was with great difficulty we got one shot which told, and by drops of blood in the track of the hindmost tiger we marked him into a patch of impenetrable jungle, where he was left to meditate till his mother was disposed of. She was quickly found, and again beat up towards us, who were stationed on high bank overlooking the nullah. She appeared distressed, and came on slowly. Two balls struck her when immediately below us, and the next instant, by a desperate spring, as her final

a

effort, she gained the top of the bank, and when within five yards of the elephant was shot through the head and rolled lifeless into the nullah.

We now returned to finish the young one. Rockets and crackers were thrown into his retreat, guns fired, and every means we could think of employed to bolt him. He would not stir. The bushes were so completely interwoven by a sort of creeper which formed an impenetrable barrier, that every effort to force the elephant through was unavailing; and while we remained undecided what to do, a tremendous fall of rain, which rendered our guns useles, decided

the matter, and we were obliged to give in.

The best shikaree in the district was killed by the tigress a few months ago. He had fired and missed, when she immediately charged him, pulled him down from the tree into which he had climbed, and broke his back.

25th. A tiger marked down in the same nullah where the last was killed. Although gorged with having eaten a whole bullock this morning, he was more active than any of the preceding ones, and passed the elephant at full speed, making a tremendous spring into the nullah, when he was hit.

We traced him by his blood into a small thicket at a short distance, where he lay growling, but nothing would induce him to charge.

The elephant could not drive him out, and it was impossible to see him from the howdah, he was so completely concealed by a thick creeper interwoven with the branches. In this case there was nothing for it but to dismount. The sharp eyes of a peon soon discovered him lying desperately wounded in the centre of a bush, and a rifle ball sent him to sleep with his fathers.

October 1st.-Two bears were beat up to us this morning; one shot dead, the other when severely wounded rolled down from a great height into a deep ravine, where he charged one of the beaters and spattered him all over with blood from his wounds, but never attempted to seize him.

The man pushed him off, and old Bruin continued his course to a thickly wooded nullah, where we left him, having discontinued the search in consequence of finding a panther, which we could not beat out.

4th. Two bears were marked down by our people this morning, and just as we were proceeding to

attack them, a sounder of hog entered the same nullah in which they were lying. A few stones drove out the hog, and after killing the old sow, who gave us a good run, we returned to the bears. They were quickly beaten up to us, and both severely wounded as they passed. One fell dead after running some distance; the other gave us a most amusing chase on foot for nearly half an hour. Her hind leg being broken, she could not run fast enough to get away, and we blazed into her as often as we could get up pretty close, hitting her repeatedly, but nothing would drop her. A longlegged peon, who had the speed of us all, kept mauling the brute with a large stick, till we at last got close enough to use pistols, as she became weaker from loss of blood, and we finally dispatched her in a bush in which she had lain up, completely done. Between laughing at the valiant peon, and the exertion of running till we were ready to drop, I have no doubt half our balls missed the bear, but I counted ten wounds in different parts of her body after she was skinned-rather a large dose of glory for a bear.

8th. A very large male tiger was beat up to us to-day. He came on most gallantly to within ten yards of the elephant, when he was dropped quite dead by the first shot, which hit him in the back of the neck. He reared to his full height, and fell back like a stone the instant he was struck.

11th.-A tigress and four young cubs were marked down this morning in a large nullah near the village.

After being driven into a small thicket, behind which the elephant was posted, she left her cubs in the jungle, and came out to reconnoitre. When she saw us she stopped, and stood growling and

VOL. II.

showing her teeth, as if uncertain whether to charge or not. A shot from the howdah rolled her over grinning and tearing up the earth with her claws, but she rose again instantly, and before we could get another shot at her she had crawled in a crippled state into cover. We soon found her lying in a small bush, gathered up ready for a charge. Her spring was like lightning, roaring as she came on with her tail in the air; when close to the elephant, who had bolted, yelling louder than the tigress, a shot told and turned her, and she walked back into cover.

We found her lying in a similar situation a few minutes after, but this time we were too quick for her, and she was floored before she had time to charge. Again she rose, and gained a small thicket, where the people on the trees marked her down. The elephant was brought up, and we saw her with her head between her fore

legs prepared to spring; she charged, but it was her last one ball between the eyes, besides others in the chest, dropped her dead under the elephant's trunk.

The cubs all escaped, owing to the length of time their mother resisted; as they were not longer than a pointer dog, their loss was not very annoying. While on the subject of tigers, I should be particularly obliged to any of your Kandeish correspondents who would gratify my curiosity by inserting in the O. S. M. the measurement of a large tiger and tigress killed in Kandeish. My reason is, that I wish to know whether they really grow to a larger size in that part of India than in the Southern Mahratta Country, as I have been informed they do.

A gentleman who signs himself Nimrod in the East is eminently qualified to decide the question, if he will be good enough to do so.

R

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

To the Editor of the Oriental Sporting Magazine.

SIR, I have to apologize to you and your readers for an error which I unintentionally committed in my letter to you concerning the Arab Signal, late Antelope.

I stated, "One thing is certain, that unsoundness in one of his feet prevented Antelope from starting again that meeting at Poonah, or in Bombay." This is incorrect, as Antelope started, three days after he was beaten by Elfin for the great sweepstakes, for the second sweepstakes, and

won them.

The sentence being so corrected, will stand thus: "One thing is

certain, that unsoundness in one of his feet prevented Antelope from starting again that meeting at Poonah, after he won the second sweepstakes, or in Bombay."

I beg to return thanks to the person signing himself "A late owner of Signal, late Antelope," in your last Magazine, for setting me right on this point.

Having no further observations to make on the subject, I again take the liberty of subscribing myself,

Your constant reader and very obedient Servant, WITNESS.

To the Editor of the Oriental Sporting Magazine. SIR, May I trouble you to insert the following question in your next number, in hopes that one out of your many subscribers will oblige a brother sportsman by answering it.

A has two matches, one against B, the other against C, both matches same weight. A wins his first match against B easy; C starts his horse against A for the second match, without weighing, intending to put up the same jockey, saddle, and bridle as B's horse carried; the bridle is unfortunately changed, which makes a difference of 2lbs. or 3lbs. in the weight; C's horse starts and is beaten after a hard race by A's horse; a cross is however claimed

and substantiated by C, to whom
the race is given, and all parties
leave the ground under the con-
viction that the race is C's. Some
four or five hours afterwards it is
discovered by A that the bridle
was changed, and consequently
the same weight was not put up
as agreed upon, and A claims the
race also.
Should both horses be
considered distanced or not? or
ought C to conceive himself
entitled to the race, as A left the
ground under the impression that
he had lost it, and did not dis-
cover the mistake until several
hours afterwards?

Your well-wisher,
RED PEPPER.

Cawnpore, 18th Oct., 1831.

« НазадПродовжити »