The Rifle and the Hound of Ceylon - Sir Samuel White Baker (icecream ebook reader TXT) 📗

and by Englishmen alone is the glorious feeling shared of true, fair, and manly sport. The character of the nation is beautifully displayed in all our rules for hunting, shooting, fishing, fighting, etc.; a feeling of fair play pervades every amusement. Who would shoot a hare in form? who would net a trout stream? who would hit a man when down? A Frenchman would do all these things, and might be no bad fellow after all. It would be HIS way of doing it. His notion would be to make use of an advantage when an opportunity offered. He would think it folly to give the hare a chance of running when he could shoot her sitting; he would make an excellent dish of all the trout he could snare; and as to hitting his man when down, he would think it madness to allow him to get up again until he had put him hors de combat by jumping on him. Their notions of sporting and ours, then, widely differ; they take every advantage, while we give every advantage; they delight in the certainty of killing, while our pleasure consists in the chance of the animal escaping.

I would always encourage the love of sport in a lad; guided by its true spirit of fair play, it is a feeling that will make him above doing a mean thing in every station of life, and will give him real feelings of humanity. I have had great experience in the characters of thorough sportsmen, who are generally straightforward, honourable men, who would scorn to take a dirty advantage of man or animal. In fact, all real sportsmen that I have met have been tender-hearted men--who shun cruelty to an animal, and are easily moved by a tale of distress.

With these feelings, sport is an amusement worthy of a man, and this noble taste has been extensively developed since the opportunities of travelling have of late years been so wonderfully improved. The facility with which the most remote regions are now reached, renders a tour over some portion of the globe a necessary adjunct to a man's education; a sportsman naturally directs his path to some land where civilisation has not yet banished the wild beast from the soil.

Ceylon is a delightful country for the sporting tourist. In the high road to India and China, any length of time may be spent en passant, and the voyage by the Overland route is nothing but a trip of a few weeks of pleasure.

This island has been always celebrated for its elephants, but the other branches of sport are comparatively unknown to strangers. No account has ever been written which embraces all Ceylon sports: anecdotes of elephant-shooting fill the pages of nearly every work on Ceylon; but the real character of the wild sports of this island has never been described, because the writers have never been acquainted with each separate branch of the Ceylon chase.

A residence of many years in this lovely country, where the wild sports of the island have formed a never-failing and constant amusement, alone confers sufficient experience to enable a person to give a faithful picture of both shooting and hunting in Ceylon jungles.

In describing these sports I shall give no anecdotes of others, but I shall simply recall scenes in which I myself have shared, preferring even a character for egotism rather than relate the statements of hearsay, for the truth of which I could not vouch. This must be accepted as an excuse for the unpleasant use of the first person.

There are many first-rate sportsmen in Ceylon who could furnish anecdotes of individual risks and hairbreadth escapes (the certain accompaniments to elephant-shooting) that would fill volumes; but enough will be found, in the few scenes which I have selected from whole hecatombs of slaughter, to satisfy and perhaps fatigue the most patient reader.

One fact I wish to impress upon all--that the colouring of every description is diminished and not exaggerated, the real scene being in all cases a picture, of which the narration is but a feeble copy.


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER 1.


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


CHAPTER II.


Newera Ellia--The Turn-out for Elk-hunting--Elk-hunting--Elk turned to Bay--The Boar


CHAPTER III.


Minneria Lake--Brush with a Bull--An Awkward Vis-a-vis--A Bright Thought--Bull Buffalo Receives his Small Change--What is Man?--Long Shot with the Four-ounce--Charged by a Herd of Buffaloes--The Four-ounce does Service--The 'Lola'--A Woman killed by a Crocodile--Crocodile at Bolgodde Lake--A Monster Crocodile--Death of a Crocodile


CHAPTER IV.


Equipment for a Hunting Trip--In Chase of a Herd of Elephants--Hard Work--Close Quarters--Six Feet from the Muzzle--A Black with a Devil


CHAPTER V.


The Four-ounce again--Tidings of a Rogue--Approaching a Tank Rogue--An Exciting Moment--Ruins of Pollanarua--Ancient Ruins--Rogues at Doolana--B. Charged by a Rogue--Planning an Attack--A Check--Narrow Escape--Rogue-stalking--A Bad Rogue--Dangers of Elephant-shooting--The Phatamahatmeya's Tale


CHAPTER VI.


Character of the Veddahs--Description of the Veddahs--A Monampitya Rogue--Attacking the Rogue--Breathless Excitement--Death of a Large Rogue--Utility of the Four-ounce--A Curious Shot--Fury of a Bull Buffalo--Character of the Wild Buffalo--Buffalo-shooting at Minneria Lake--Charge in High Reeds--Close of a Good Day's Sport--Last Day at Minneria--A Large Snake--An Unpleasant Bedfellow


CHAPTER VII.


Capabilities of Ceylon--Deer at Illepecadewe--Sagacity of a Pariah Dog--Two Deer at One Shot--Deer-stalking--Hambantotte Country--Kattregam Festival--Sitrawelle--Ruins of Ancient Mahagam--Wiharewelle--A Night Attack upon Elephants--Shooting by Moonlight--Yalle River--Another Rogue--A Stroll before Breakfast--A Curious Shot--A Good Day's Sport


CHAPTER VIII.


Best Hounds for Elk-hunting--Smut--Killbuck--The Horton Plains--A Second Soyer--The Find--The Buck at Bay--The Bay--The Death--Return of Lost Dogs--Comparative Speed of Deer--Veddah Ripped by a Boar--A Melee--Buck at Black Pool--Old Smut's Ruse--Margosse Oil


CHAPTER IX.


A Morning's Deer-coursing--Kondawataweny--Rogue at Kondawataweny--A Close Shave--Preparations for Catching an Elephant--Catching an Elephant--Taming Him--Flying Shot at a Buck--Cave at Dimbooldene--Awkward Ground--A Charmed Life


CHAPTER X.


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.

It is this feeling that deters many men who have passed