Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier Part 5

'Bottle-nosed Whale,' 'Fin MacCoul,' 'Daddy,' 'The Exquisite,' 'The Mosquito,' 'Wee Bob,' and 'Napoleon,' are only a very few specimens of this strange nomenclature. These soubriquets quite usurp our baptismal appellations, and I have often been called 'Maori,' by people who did not actually know my real name.

By the evening, all, barring the very late arrivals, have found out their various camps. There is a merry dinner, then each sahib, well m.u.f.fled in ulster, plaid, or great coat, hies him to the club, where the 'ordinary' is to be held. The nights are now cold and foggy, and a tremendous dew falls. At the 'ordinary,' fresh greetings between those who now meet for the first time after long separation. The entries and bets are made for the morrow's races, although not much betting takes place as a rule; but the lotteries on the different races are rapidly filled, the dice circulate cheerily, and amid laughing, joking, smoking, noise, and excitement, there is a good deal of mild speculation. The 'horsey' ones visit the stables for the last time; and each retires to his camp bed to dream of the morrow.

Very early, the respective _bearers_ rouse the sleepy _sahibs_. Table servants rush hurriedly about the mess tent, bearing huge dishes of tempting viands. Grooms, and _gra.s.scuts_ are busy leading the horses off to the course. The cold raw fog of the morning fills every tent, and dim grey figures of cowering natives, wrapped up over the eyes in blankets, with moist blue noses and chattering teeth, are barely discernible in the thick mist.

The racecourse is two miles from the club, on the other side of the lake, in the middle of a gra.s.sy plain, with a neat masonry structure at the further side, which serves as a grand stand. Already buggies, dogcarts in single harness and tandem, barouches, and waggonettes are merrily rolling through the thick mist, past the frowning jail, and round the corner of the lake. Natives in gaudy coloured shawls, and blankets, are pouring on to the racecourse by hundreds.

Bullock carts, within which are black-eyed, bold beauties, profusely burdened with silver ornaments, are drawn up in lines. _Ekkas_--small jingling vehicles with a dome-shaped canopy and curtains at the sides--drawn by gaily caparisoned ponies, and containing fat, portly Baboos, jingle and rattle over the ruts on the side roads.

Sweetmeat sellers, with trays of horrible looking filth, made seemingly of insects, clarified b.u.t.ter, and sugar, dodge through the crowd dispensing their abominable looking but seemingly much relished wares.

Tall policemen, with blue jackets, red puggries, yellow belts, and white trousers, stalk up and down with conscious dignity.

A madcap young a.s.sistant on his pony comes tearing along across country. The weighing for the first race is going on; horses are being saddled, some vicious brute occasionally las.h.i.+ng out, and scattering the crowd behind him. The ladies are seated round the terraced grand stand; long strings of horses are being led round and round in a circle, by the _syces_; vehicles of every description are lying round the building.

Suddenly a bugle sounds; the judge enters his box; the ever popular old 'Bikram,' who officiates as starter, ambles off on his white cob, and after him go half-a-dozen handsome young fellows, their silks rustling and flas.h.i.+ng through the fast rising mist.

A hundred field-gla.s.ses scan the start; all is silent for a moment.

'They're off!' shout a dozen lungs.

'False start!' echo a dozen more.

The gay colours of the riders flicker confusedly in a jumble. One horse careers madly along for half the distance, is with difficulty pulled up, and is then walked slowly back.

The others left at the post fret, and fidget, and curvet about. At length they are again in line. Down goes the white flag! 'Good start!'

shouts an excited planter. Down goes the red flag. 'Off at last!'

breaks like a deep drawn sigh from the crowd, and now the six horses, all together, and at a rattling pace, tear up the hill, over the sand at the south corner, and up, till at the quarter mile post 'a blanket could cover the lot.'

Two or three tails are now showing signals of distress; heels and whips are going. Two horses have shot ahead, a bay and a black. 'Jamie' on the bay, 'Paddy' on the black.

Still as marble sit those splendid riders, the horses are neck and neck; now the bay by a nose, now again the black. The distance post is pa.s.sed with a rush like a whirlwind.

'A dead heat, by Jove!'

'Paddy wins!' 'Jamie has it!' 'Hooray, Pat!' 'Go it, Jamie!' 'Well ridden!' A subdued hum runs round the excited spectators. The ardent racers are nose and nose. One swift, sharp cut, the cruel whip hisses through the air, and the black is fairly 'lifted in,' a winner by a nose. The ripple of conversation breaks out afresh. The band strikes up a lively air, and the saddling for the next race goes on.

The other races are much the same; there are lots of entries: the horses are in splendid condition, and the riding is superb. What is better, everything is emphatically 'on the square.' No _pulling_ and _roping_ here, no false entries, no dodging of any kind. Fine, gallant, English gentlemen meet each other in fair and honest emulation, and enjoy the favourite national sport in perfection. The 'Waler' race, for imported Australians, brings out fine, tall, strong-boned, clean-limbed horses, looking blood all over. The country breds, with slender limbs, small heads, and glossy coats, look dainty and delicate as antelopes.

The lovely, compact Arabs, the pretty-looking ponies, and the thick-necked, coa.r.s.e-looking Cabools, all have their respective trials, and then comes the great event--the race of the day--the Steeplechase.

The course is marked out behind the grand stand, following a wide circle outside the flat course, which it enters at the quarter-mile post, so that the finish is on the flat before the grand stand. The fences, ditches, and water leap, are all artificial, but they are regular _howlers_, and no make-believes.

Seven horses are despatched to a straggling start, and all negotiate the first bank safely. At the next fence a regular _snorter_ of a 'post and rail'--topped with brushwood--two horses swerve, one rider being deposited on his racing seat upon mother earth, while the other sails away across country in a line for home, and is next heard of at the stables. The remaining five, three 'walers' and two country-breds, race together to the water jump, where one waler deposits his rider, and races home by himself, one country-bred refuses, and is henceforth out of the race, and the other three, taking the leap in beautiful style, put on racing pace to the next bank, and are in the air together. A lovely sight! The country is now stiff, and the stride of the waler tells. He is leading the country-breds a 'whacker,' but he stumbles and falls at the last fence but one from home. His gallant rider, the undaunted 'Roley,' remounts just as the two country-breds pa.s.s him like a flash of light. 'Nothing venture, nothing win,' however, so in go the spurs, and off darts the waler like an arrow in pursuit. He is gaining fast, and tops the last hurdle leading to the straight just as the hoofs of the other two reach the ground.

It is now a matter of pace and good riding. It will be a close finish; the waler is first to feel the whip; there is a roar from the crowd; he is actually leading; whips and spurs are hard at work now; it is a mad, headlong rush; every muscle is strained, and the utmost effort made; the poor horses are doing their very best; amid a thunder of hoofs, clouds of dust, hats in air, waving of handkerchiefs from the grand stand, and a truly British cheer from the paddock, the 'waler' shoots in half a length ahead; and so end the morning's races.

Back to camp now, to bathe and breakfast. A long line of dust marks the track from the course, for the sun is now high in the heavens, the lake is rippling in placid beauty under a gentle breeze, and the long lines of natives, as well as vehicles of all sorts, form a quaint but picturesque sight. After breakfast calls are made upon all the camps and bungalows round the station. Croquet, badminton, and other games go on until dinner-time. I could linger lovingly over a camp dinner; the rare dishes, the sparkling conversation, the racy anecdote, and the general jollity and brotherly feeling; but we must all dress for the ball, and so about 9 P.M. the buggies are again in requisition for the ball room--the fine, large, central apartment in the Planters' club.

The walls are festooned with flowers, gay curtains, flags, and cloths.

The floor is s.h.i.+ning like silver, and as polished as a mirror. The band strikes up the Blue Danube waltz, and amid the usual bustle, flirtation, scandal, whispering, glancing, dancing, tripping, sipping, and hand-squeezing, the ball goes gaily on till the stewards announce supper. At this--to the wall-flowers--welcome announcement, we adjourn from the heated ball-room to the cool arbour-like supper tent, where every delicacy that can charm the eye or tempt the appet.i.te is spread out.

Next morning early we are out with the hounds, and enjoy a rattling burst round by the racecourse, where the horses are at exercise.

Perchance we have heard of a boar in the sugar-cane, and away we go with beaters to rouse the grisly monster from his lair. In the afternoon there is hockey on horseback, or volunteer drill, with our gallant adjutant putting us through our evolutions. In the evening there is the usual drive, dinner, music, and the ordinary, and so the meet goes on. A constant succession of gaieties keeps everyone alive, till the time arrives for a return to our respective factories, and another year's hard work.

[1] In such a limited society every peculiarity is noted; all our antecedents are known; personal predilections and little foibles of character are marked; eccentricities are watched, and no one, let him be as uninteresting as a miller's pig, is allowed to escape observation and remark. Some little peculiarity is. .h.i.t upon, and a strange but often very happily expressive nickname stamps one's individuality and photographs him with a word.

CHAPTER IX.

Pig-sticking in India.--Varieties of boar.--Their size and height.

--Ingenious mode of capture by the natives,--The 'Batan' or buffalo herd.--Pigs charging.--Their courage and ferocity.--Destruction of game.--A close season for game.

The sport _par excellence_ of India is pig-sticking. Call it hog-hunting if you will, I prefer the honest old-fas.h.i.+oned name. With a good horse under one, a fair country, with not too many pitfalls, and 'lots of pig,' this sport becomes the most exciting that can be practised. Some prefer tiger shooting from elephants, others like to stalk the lordly ibex on the steep Himalayan slopes, but anyone who has ever enjoyed a rattle after a pig over a good country, will recall the fierce, delight, the eager thrill, the wild, mad excitement, that flushed his whole frame, as he met the infuriate charge of a good thirty-inch fighting boar, and drove his trusty spear well home, laying low the gallant grey tusker, the indomitable, unconquerable grisly boar. The subject is well worn; and though the theme is a n.o.ble one, there are but few I fancy who have not read the record of some gallant fight, where the highest skill, the finest riding, the most undaunted pluck, and the cool, keen, daring of a practised hand are not _always_ successful against the headlong rush and furious charge of a Bengal boar at bay.

A record of planter life in India, however, such as this aims at being, would be incomplete without some reference to the gallant tusker, and so at the risk of tiring my readers, I must try to describe a pig-sticking party.

There are two distinct kinds of boar in India, the black and the grey.

Their dispositions are very different, the grey being fiercer and more pugnacious. He is a vicious and implacable foe when roused, and always shews better fight than the black variety. The great difference, however, is in the shape of the skull; that of the black fellow being high over the frontal bone, and not very long in proportion to height, while the skull of the grey boar is never very high, but is long, and receding in proportion to height.

The black boar grows to an enormous size, and the grey ones are, generally speaking, smaller made animals than the black. The young of the two also differ in at least one important particular; those of the grey pig are always born striped, but the young of the black variety are born of that colour, and are not striped but a uniform black colour throughout. The two kinds of pig sometimes interbreed, but crosses are not common; and, from the colour, size, shape of the head, and general behaviour, one can easily tell at a glance what kind of pig gets up before his spear, whether it is the heavy, sluggish black boar, or the veritable fiery, vicious, fighting grey tusker.

Many stories are told of their enormous size, and a 'forty-inch tusker'

is the established standard for a Goliath among boars. The best fighting boars, however, range from twenty-eight to thirty-two inches in height, and I make bold to say that very few of the Present generation of sportsmen have ever seen a veritable wild boar over thirty-eight inches high.

G.S., who has had perhaps as much jungle experience as any man of his age in India, a careful observer, and a finished sportsman, tells me that the biggest _boar_ he ever saw was only thirty-eight inches high; while the biggest _pig_ he ever killed was a barren sow, with three-inch tusks sticking out of her gums; she measured thirty-nine-and-a-half inches, and fought like a demon. I have shot pig--in heavy jungle where spearing was impracticable--over thirty-six inches high, but the biggest pig I ever stuck to my own spear was only twenty-eight inches, and I do not think any pig has been killed in Chumparun, within the last ten or a dozen years at any rate, over thirty-eight inches.

In some parts of India, where pigs are numerous and the jungle dense, the natives adopt a very ingenious mode of hunting. I have frequently seen it practised by the cowherds on the Koosee _derahs_, i.e. the flat swampy jungles on the banks of the Koosee. When the annual floods have subsided, leaving behind a thick deposit of mud, wrack, and brushwood, the long thick gra.s.s soon shoots up to an amazing height, and vast herds of cattle and tame buffaloes come down to the jungles from the interior of the country, where natural pasture is scarce. They are attended by the owner and his a.s.sistants, all generally belonging to the _gualla_, or cowherd caste, although, of course, there are other castes employed. The owner of the herd gets leave to graze his cattle in the jungle, by paying a certain fixed sum per head. He fixes on a high dry ridge of land, where he runs up a few gra.s.s huts for himself and men, and there he erects lines of gra.s.s and bamboo screens, behind which his cattle take shelter at night from the cold south-east wind.

There are also a few huts of exceedingly frail construction for himself and his people. This small colony, in the midst of the universal jungle covering the country for miles round, is called a _batan_.

At earliest dawn the buffaloes are milked, and then with their attendant herdsmen they wend their way to the jungle, where they spend the day, and return again to the batan at night, when they are again milked. The milk is made into _ghee_, or clarified b.u.t.ter, and large quant.i.ties are sent down to the towns by country boats. When we want to get up a hunt, we generally send to the nearest _batan_ for _khubber_, i.e. news, information. The _Batanea_, or proprietor of the establishment, is well posted up. Every herdsman as he comes in at night tells what animals he has seen through the day, and thus at the _batan_ you hear where tiger, and pig, and deer are to be met with; where an unlucky cow has been killed; in what ravine is the thickest jungle; where the path is free from clay, or quicksand; what fords are safest; and, in short, you get complete information on every point connected with the jungle and its wild inhabitants.

To these men the mysterious jungle reveals its most hidden secrets.

Surrounded by his herd of buffaloes, the _gualla_ ventures into the darkest recesses and the most tangled thickets. They have strange wild calls by which they give each other notice of the approach of danger, and when two or three of them meet, each armed with his heavy, iron-shod or bra.s.s-bound _lathee_ or quarter staff, they will not budge an inch out of their way for buffalo or boar; nay, they have been known to face the terrible tiger himself, and fairly beat him away from the quivering carcase of some unlucky member of their herd. They have generally some favourite buffalo on whose broad back they perch themselves, as it browses through the jungle, and from this elevated seat they survey the rest of the herd, and note the incidents of jungle life. When they wish a little excitement, or a change from their milk and rice diet, there are hundreds of pigs around.

They have a broad, sharp spear-head, to which is attached a stout cord, often made of twisted hide or hair. Into the socket of the spear is thrust a bamboo pole or shaft, tough, pliant, and flexible. The cord is wound round the spear and shaft, and the loose end is then fastened to the middle of the pole. Having thus prepared his weapon, the herdsman mounts his buffalo, and guides it slowly, warily, and cautiously to the haunts of the pig. These are, of course, quite accustomed to see the buffaloes grazing round them on all sides, and take no notice until the _gualla_ is within striking distance. When he has got close up to the pig he fancies, he throws his spear with all his force. The pig naturally bounds off, the shaft comes out of the socket, leaving the spearhead sticking in the wound. The rope uncoils of itself, but being firmly fastened to the bamboo, it brings up the pig at each bush, and tears and lacerates the wound, until either the spearhead comes out, or the wretched pig drops down dead from exhaustion and loss of blood. The _gualla_ follows upon his buffalo, and frequently finishes the pig with a few strokes of his _lathee_. In any case he gets his pork, and it certainly is an ingenious and bold way of procuring it.

Wild pig are very destructive to crops. During the night they revel in the cultivated fields contiguous to the jungle, and they destroy more by rooting up than by actually eating. It is common for the ryot to dig a shallow pit, and ensconce himself inside with his matchlock beside him. His head being on a level with the ground, he can discern any animal that comes between him and the sky-line. When a pig comes in sight, he waits till he is within sure distance, and then puts either a bullet or a charge of slugs into him.

The pig is perhaps the most stubborn and courageous animal in India.

Even when pierced with several spears, and bleeding from numerous wounds, he preserves a sullen silence. He disdains to utter a cry of fear and pain, but maintains a bold front to the last, and dies with his face to the foe, defiant and unconquered. When hard pressed he scorns to continue his flight, but wheeling round, he makes a determined charge, very frequently to the utter discomfiture of his pursuer.

I have seen many a fine horse fearfully cut by a charging pig, and a determined boar over and over again break through a line of elephants, and make good his escape. There is no animal in all the vast jungle that the elephant dreads more than a l.u.s.ty boar. I have seen elephants that would stand the repeated charges of a wounded tiger, turn tail and take to ignominious flight before the onset of an angry boar.

His thick short neck, ponderous body, and wedge-like head are admirably fitted for cras.h.i.+ng through the thick jungle he inhabits, and when he has made up his mind to charge, very few animals can withstand his furious rush. Instances are quite common of his having made good his charge against a line of elephants, cutting and ripping more than one severely. He has been known to encounter successfully even the kingly tiger himself. Can it be wondered, then, that we consider him a 'foeman worthy of our steel'?

To be a good pig-sticker is a recommendation that wins acceptance everywhere in India. In a district like Chumparun where nearly every planter was an ardent sportsman, a good rider, and spent nearly half his time on horseback, pig-sticking was a favourite pastime. Every factory had at least one bit of likely jungle close by, where a pig could always be found. When I first went to India we used to take out our pig-spear over the _zillah_ with us as a matter of course, as we never knew when we might hit on a boar.