Thus, At Any Time, The Guns May
Be Packed Up, And, With Tents And Baggage Sent On Some Days In Advance,
A Fortnight's Or A Month's War May Be Carried On Against The Elephants
Without Much Trouble.
The turn-out for elk-hunting during the fashionable season at Newera
Ellia is sometimes peculiarly exciting.
The air is keen and frosty, the
plains snow-white with the crisp hoar frost, and even at the early hour
of 6 A.M. parties of ladies may be seen urging their horses round the
plain on their way to the appointed meet. Here we are waiting with the
anxious pack, perhaps blessing some of our more sleepy friends for not
turning out a little earlier. Party after party arrives, including many
of the fair sex, and the rosy tips to all countenances attest the
quality of the cold even in Ceylon.
There is something peculiarly inspiriting in the early hour of sunrise
upon these mountains--an indescribable lightness in the atmosphere,
owing to the great elevation, which takes a wonderful effect upon the
spirits. The horses and the hounds feel its influence in an equal
degree; the former, who are perhaps of sober character in the hot
climate, now champ the bit and paw the ground: their owners hardly know
them by the change.
We have frequently mustered as many as thirty horses at a meet; but on
these occasions a picked spot is chosen where the sport may be easily
witnessed by those who are unaccustomed to it. The horses may, in these
instances, be available, but as a rule they are perfectly useless in
elk-hunting, as the plains are so boggy that they would be hock-deep
every quarter of a mile. Thus no person can thoroughly enjoy elk-hunting
who is not well accustomed to it, as it is a sport conducted entirely on
foot, and the thinness of the air in this elevated region is very trying
to the lungs in hard exercise. Thoroughly sound in wind and limb, with
no superfluous flesh, must be the man who would follow the hounds in
this wild country--through jungles, rivers, plains and deep ravines,
sometimes from sunrise to sunset without tasting food since the previous
evening, with the exception of a cup of coffee and a piece of toast
before starting. It is trying work, but it is a noble sport: no weapon
but the hunting-knife; no certainty as to the character of the game that
may be found; it may be either an elk, or a boar, or a leopard, and yet
the knife and the good hounds are all that can be trusted in.
It is a glorious sport certainly to a man who thoroughly understands it;
the voice of every hound familiar to his ear; the particular kind of
game that is found is at once known to him, long before he is in view,
by the style of the hunting. If an elk is found, the hounds follow with
a burst straight as a line, and at a killing pace, directly up the hill,
till he at length turns and bends his headlong course for some
stronghold in a deep river to bay.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 20 of 177
Words from 9773 to 10310
of 91283
