Old Smut had been thrown to
the rear as the buck turned, and Lena came beautifully to the front,
leading the whole pack.
There was a shallow sandbank in the river where
the bitch could get a footing, and she dashed across it to the attack.
The buck met her in her-advance by a sudden charge, which knocked her
over and over, but at the same instant Valiant, who is a fine, powerful
dog, made a clever spring forward and pinned the buck by the ear. There
was no shaking him off, and he was immediately backed up by Ploughboy,
who caught the other ear most cleverly. There the two dogs hung like
ear-rings as the buck, rearing up, swung them to and fro, but could not
break their hold. In another moment the greyhounds were upon him-the
whole pack covered him; his beautiful form was seen alternately rearing
from the water with the dogs hanging upon him in all directions, then
struggling in a confused mass nearly beneath the surface of the stream.
He was a brave fellow, and had fought nobly, but there was no hope for
him, and we put an end to the fight with the hunting-knife.
It was past four o'clock P.M., and he had been found at seven A.M., but
the conclusion fully repaid us for the day's work. The actual distance
run by the buck was not above eight miles, but we had gone about twenty
during the day, the greater portion of which was over most fatiguing
ground.
On an open country an elk would never be caught without greyhounds until
he had run fifteen or twenty miles. The dense jungles fatigue him as he
ploughs his way through them, and thus forms a path for the dogs behind
him. How he can move in some of these jungles is an enigma; a horse
would break his legs, and, in fact, could not stir in places through
which an elk passes in full gallop.
The principal underwood in the mountain districts of Ceylon is the
'nillho.' This is a perfectly straight stem, from twelve to twenty feet
in length, and about an inch and a half in diameter, having no branches
except a few small arms at the top, which are covered with large leaves.
This plant, in proportion to its size, grows as close as corn in a
field, and forms a dense jungle most difficult to penetrate. When the
jungles are in this state, the elk is at a disadvantage, as the immense
exertion required to break his way through this mass soon fatigues him,
and forces him to come to bay.
Every seven years this 'nillho' blossoms. The jungles are then neither
more nor less than vast bouquets of bright purple and white flowers; the
perfume is delicious, and swarms of bees migrate from other countries to
make their harvest of honey. The quantity collected is extraordinary.
The bee-hunters start from the low country, and spend weeks in the
jungle in collecting the honey and wax. When looking over an immense
tract of forest from some elevated point, the thin blue lines of smoke
may be seen rising in many directions, marking the sites of the
bee-hunters fires. Their method of taking the honey is simple enough.
The bees' nests hang from the boughs of the trees, and a man ascends
with a torch of green leaves, which creates a dense smoke. He approaches
the nest and smokes off the swarm, which, on quitting the exterior of
the comb, exposes a beautiful circular mass of honey and wax, generally
about eighteen inches in diameter and six inches thick. The bee-hunter
being provided with vessels formed from the rind of the gourd attached
to ropes, now cuts up the comb and fills his chatties, lowering them
down to his companions below.
When the blossom of the nillho fades, the seed forms; this is a sweet
little kernel, with the flavour of a nut. The bees now leave the
country, and the jungles suddenly swarm, as though by magic, with
pigeons, jungle-fowl, and rats. At length the seed is shed and the
nillho dies.
The jungles then have a curious appearance. The underwood being dead,
the forest-trees rise from a mass of dry sticks like thin hop-poles. The
roots of these plants very soon decay, and a few weeks of high wind,
howling through the forest, levels the whole mass, leaving the trees
standing free from underwood. The appearance of the ground can now be
imagined-a perfect chaos of dead sticks and poles, piled one on the
other, in every direction, to a depth of between two and three feet. It
can only be compared to a mass of hurdles being laid in a heap. The
young nillho grows rapidly through this, concealing the mass of dead
sticks beneath, and forms a tangled barrier which checks both dogs and
man. With tough gaiters to guard the shins, we break through by main
force and weight, and the dogs scramble sometimes over, sometimes under
the surface. At this period the elk are in great numbers, as they feed
with great avidity upon the succulent young nillho. The dogs are now at
a disadvantage. While they are scrambling with difficulty through this
mass of half-rotten sticks, the elk bounds over it with ease, leaving no
path behind him, as he clears it by leaps, and does not exhaust himself
by bursting through it. He now constantly escapes, and leaves the pack
miles behind; the best hounds follow him, but with such a start he leads
them into the unknown depths of the jungles, over high mountains and
across deep ravines, from which the lost dogs frequently never return.
There can be no question that it is a bad country for hunting at all
times, as the mass of forest is so disproportionate to the patinas; but,
on the other hand, were the forests of smaller size there would be less
game.
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