WILD PIGS--ANIMAL AND HUMAN
Shansi Province is famous for wild boar among the sportsmen of China.
In the central part there are low mountains and deep ravines thickly
forested with a scrub growth of pine and oak. The acorns are a favorite
food of the pigs, and the pigs are a favorite food of the Chinese--and
of foreigners, too, for that matter. No domestic pork that I have ever
tasted can excel a young acorn-fed wild pig! Even a full-grown sow
is delicious, but beware of an old boar; not only is he tough beyond
description, but his flesh is so "strong" that it annoys me even to see
it cooked. I tried to eat some boar meat, once upon a time--that is why
I feel so deeply about it.
It is useless to hunt wild pig until the leaves are off the trees, for
your only hope is to find them feeding on the hillsides in the morning
or early evening. Then they will often come into the open or the thin
forests, and you can have a fair shot across a ravine or from the
summit of a hill. If they are in the brush it is well-nigh impossible
to see them at all. A wild boar is very clever at eluding his pursuers,
and for his size can carry off more lead and requires more killing than
any other animal of which I know. Therefore, you may be sure of a
decidedly interesting hunt. On the other hand, an unsuspecting pig is
easy to stalk, for his eyesight is not good; his sense of smell is not
much better; and he depends largely upon hearing to protect him from
enemies.
In Tientsin and Shanghai there are several sportsmen who year after
year go to try for record tusks--they are the real authorities on wild
boar hunting. My own experience has been limited to perhaps a dozen
pigs killed in Korea, Mongolia, Celebes, and various parts of China.
Harry Caldwell and I returned from our bighorn sheep and wapiti hunt
on November 19. He was anxious to go with me for wild boar, but
business required his presence in Foochow, and Everett Smith, who
had been my companion on a trip to the Eastern Tombs the previous
spring, volunteered to accompany me. We left on November 28 by the
Peking-Hankow Railroad for Ping-ting-cho, arriving the following
afternoon at two o'clock. There we obtained donkeys for pack and
riding animals. All the traffic in this part of Shansi is by mules or
donkeys. As a result the inns are small, with none of the spacious
courtyards which we had found in the north of the province. They were
not particularly dirty, but the open coal fires which burned in every
kitchen sometimes drove us outside for a breath of untainted air. How
it is possible for human beings to exist in rooms so filled with coal
gas is beyond my knowledge. Of course, death from gas poisoning is not
unusual, but I suppose the natives have become somewhat immune to its
effects.
Our destination was a tiny village in the mountains about eight miles
beyond Ho-shun, a city of considerable size in the very center of the
province. Tai-yuan-fu, the capital, at the end of the railway, is
a famous place for pigs; but they have been hunted so persistently
in recent years that few remain within less than two or three days'
journey from the city.
It was a three days' trip from the railroad to Ho-shun, and there was
little of interest to distinguish the road from any other in north
China. It is always monotonous to travel with pack animals or carts,
for they go so slowly that you can make only two or three miles an
hour, at best. If there happens to be shooting along the way, as there
is in most parts of Shansi, it helps to pass the time. We picked up a
few pheasants, some chuckars, and a dozen pigeons, but did not stop to
do any real hunting until we entered a wooded valley and established
ourselves in a fairly comfortable Chinese hut at the little village
of Kao-chia-chuang. On the way in we met a party of Christian Brother
missionaries who had been hunting in the vicinity for five days. They
had seen ten or twelve pigs and had killed a splendid boar weighing
about three hundred and fifty pounds as well as two roebuck.
The mountains near the village had been so thoroughly hunted that
there was little chance of finding pigs, but nevertheless we decided
to stay for a day or two. I killed a two-year-old roebuck on the first
afternoon; and the next morning, while Smith and I were resting on a
mountain trail, one of our men saw an enormous wild boar trot across
an open ridge and disappear into a heavily forested ravine. I selected
a post on a projecting shoulder, while one Chinese went with Smith to
pick up the trail of the pig. There were so many avenues of escape open
to the boar that I had to remain where it was possible to watch a large
expanse of country.
Smith had not yet reached the bottom of the ravine when the native
who had remained with me suddenly began to gesticulate wildly and to
point to a wooded slope directly in front of us. He hopped about like
a man who has suddenly lost his mind and succeeded in keeping in front
of me so that I could see nothing but his waving arms and writhing
body. Finally seizing him by the collar, I threw him to the ground so
violently that he realized his place was behind me. Then I saw the pig
running along a narrow trail, silhouetted against the snow which lay
thinly on the shaded side of the hill.
He was easily three hundred and fifty yards away and I had little hope
of hitting him, but I selected an open patch beyond a bit of cover and
fired as he emerged. The boar squealed and plunged forward into the
bushes. A moment later he reappeared, zigzagging his way up the slope
and only visible through the trees when he crossed a patch of snow. I
emptied the magazine of my rifle in a futile bombardment, but the boar
crossed the summit and disappeared.
We picked up his bloody trail and for two hours followed it through a
tangled mass of scrub and thorns. It seemed certain that we must find
him at any moment, for great red blotches stained the snow wherever he
stopped to rest. At last the trail led us across an open ridge, and the
snow and blood suddenly ceased. We could not follow his footprints in
the thick grass and abandoned the chase just before dark.
Two more days of unsuccessful hunting convinced us that the
missionaries had driven the pigs to other cover. There was a region
twelve miles away to which they might have gone, and we shifted camp
to a village named Tziloa a mile or more from the scrub-covered hills
which we wished to investigate.
The natives of this part of the country were in no sense hunters. They
were farmers who, now that the crops were harvested, had plenty of
leisure time and were glad to roam the hills with us. Although their
eyesight was remarkable and they were able to see a pig twice as far
as we could, they had no conception of stalking the game or of how to
hunt it. When we began to shoot, instead of watching the pigs, they
were always so anxious to obtain the empty cartridge cases that a wild
scramble ensued after every shot. They were like street boys fighting
for a penny. It was a serious handicap for successful hunting, and they
kept me in such a state of irritation that I never shot so badly in all
my life.
We found pigs at Tziloa immediately. The carts went by road to the
village, while Smith and I, with two Chinese, crossed the mountains.
On the summit of a ridge not far from the village we met eight native
hunters. Two of them had ancient muzzle-loading guns but the others
only carried staves. Evidently their method of hunting was to surround
the pigs and drive them close up to the men with firearms.
We persuaded one of the Chinese, a boy of eighteen, with cross-eyes
and a funny, dried-up little face, to accompany us, for our two guides
wished to return that night to Kao-chia-chuang. He led us down a spur
which projected northward from the main ridge, and in ten minutes we
discovered five pigs on the opposite side of a deep ravine. The sun lay
warmly on the slope, and the animals were lazily rooting in the oak
scrub. They were a happy family--a boar, a sow, and three half-grown
piglets.
We slipped quietly among the trees until we were directly opposite to
them and not more than two hundred yards away. The boar and the sow had
disappeared behind a rocky corner, and the others were slowly following
so that the opportunity for a shot would soon be lost. Telling Smith to
take the one on the left, I covered another which stood, half facing
me. At the roar of my rifle the ravine was filled with wild squeals,
and the pig rolled down the hill bringing up against a tree. The boar
rushed from behind the rock, and I fired quickly as he stood broadside
on. He plunged out of sight, and the gorge was still!
Smith had missed his pig and was very much disgusted. The three Chinese
threw themselves down the slope, slipping and rolling over logs and
stones, and were up the opposite hill before we reached the bottom of
the ravine. They found the pig which I had killed and a blood-splashed
trail leading around the hill where the boar had disappeared.
My pig was a splendid male in the rich red-brown coat of adolescence.
The bullet had struck him "amid-ships" and shattered the hip on the
opposite side. From the blood on the trail we decided that I had shot
the big boar through the center of the body about ten inches behind the
forelegs.
We had learned by experience how much killing a full-grown pig
required, and had no illusions about finding him dead a few yards away,
even though both sides of his path were blotched with red at every
step. Therefore, while the Chinese followed the trail, Smith and I
sprinted across the next ridge into a thickly forested ravine to head
off the boar.
We took stations several yards apart, and suddenly I heard Smith's
rifle bang six times in quick succession. The Chinese had disturbed the
pig from a patch of cover and it had climbed the opposite hill slope in
full view of Smith, who apparently had missed it every time. Missing a
boar dodging about among the bushes is not such a difficult thing to
do, and although poor Smith was too disgusted even to talk about it, I
had a good deal of sympathy for him.
We had little hope of getting the animal when we climbed to the summit
of the ridge and saw the tangle of brush into which it had disappeared,
but nevertheless we followed the trail which was still showing blood.
I was in front and was just letting myself down a snow-covered bowlder,
when far below me I saw a huge sow and a young pig walking slowly
through the trees. I turned quickly, lost my balance, and slipped feet
first over the rock into a mass of thorns and scrub. A locomotive could
not have made more noise, and I extricated myself just in time to see
the two pigs disappear into a grove of pines. I was bleeding from a
dozen scratches, but I climbed to the summit of the ridge and dashed
forward hoping to cut them off if they crossed below me. They did
not appear, and we tried to drive them out from the cover into which
they had made their way; but we never saw them again. It was already
beginning to grow dark and too late to pick up the trail of the wounded
boar, so we had to call it a day and return to the village.
One of our men carried my shotgun and we killed half a dozen pheasants
on the way back to camp. The birds had come into the open to feed, and
small flocks were scattered along the valley every few hundred yards.
We saw about one hundred and fifty in less than an hour, besides a few
chuckars.
I have never visited any part of China where pheasants were so
plentiful as in this region. Had we been hunting birds we could have
killed a hundred or more without the slightest difficulty during the
time we were looking for pigs. We could not shoot, however, without
the certainty of disturbing big game and, consequently, we only killed
pheasants when on the way back to camp. During the day the birds kept
well up toward the summits of the ridges and only left the cover in the
morning and evening.
Our second hunt was very amusing, as well as successful. We met the
same party of Chinese hunters early in the morning, and agreed to
divide the meat of all the pigs we killed during the day if they would
join forces with us. Among them was a tall, fine-looking young fellow,
evidently the leader, who was a real hunter--the only one we found in
the entire region. He knew instinctively where the pigs were, what they
would do, and how to get them.
He led us without a halt along the summit of the mountain into a ravine
and up a long slope to the crest of a knifelike ridge. Then he suddenly
dropped in the grass and pointed across a cañon to a bare hillside. Two
pigs were there in plain sight--one a very large sow. They were fully
three hundred yards away and on the edge of a bushy patch toward which
they were feeding slowly. Smith left me to hurry to the bottom of the
cañon where he could have a shot at close range if either one went down
the hill, while I waited behind a stone. Before he was halfway down the
slope the sow moved toward the patch of cover into which the smaller
pig had already disappeared. It must be then, if I was to have a shot
at all. I fired rather hurriedly and registered a clean miss. Both
pigs, instead of staying in the cover where they would have been safe,
dashed down the open slope toward the bottom of the cañon. At my first
shot all eight of the Chinese had leaped for the empty rifle shell and
were rolling about like a pack of dogs after a bone. One of them struck
my leg just as I fired the second time and the bullet went into the
air; I delivered a broadside of my choicest Chinese oaths and the man
drew off. I sent three shots after the fleeing sow, but she disappeared
unhurt.
One shell remained in my rifle, and I saw the other pig running like a
scared rabbit in the very bottom of the cañon. It was so far away that
I could barely see the animal through my sights, but when I fired it
turned a complete somersault and lay still; the bullet had caught it
squarely in the head.
Meanwhile, Smith was having a lively time with the old sow. He had
swung around a corner of rock just in time to meet the pig coming at
full speed from the other side not six yards away. He tried to check
himself, slipped, and sat down suddenly but managed to fire once,
breaking the animal's left foreleg. It disappeared into the brush with
Smith after it.
He began an intermittent bombardment which lasted half an hour.
_Bang, bang, bang_--then silence. _Bang, bang, bang_--silence again.
I wondered what it all meant and finally ran down the bottom of the
valley until I saw Smith opposite to me just under the rim of the
ravine. He was tearing madly through the brush not far behind the
sow. As the animal appeared for an instant on the summit of a rise he
dropped on one knee and fired twice. Then I saw him race over the hill,
leaping the bushes like a roebuck. Once he rolled ten feet into a mass
of thorn scrub, but he was up again in an instant, hurdling the brush
and fallen logs, his eye on the pig.
It was screamingly funny and I was helpless with laughter. "Go it.
Smith," I yelled. "Run him down. Catch him in your hands." He had no
breath to waste in a reply, for just then he leaped a fallen log and
I saw the sow charge him viciously. The animal had been lying under a
tree, almost done, but still had life enough to damage Smith badly if
it had reached him. As the man landed on his feet, he fired again at
the pig which was almost on him. The bullet caught the brute in the
shoulder at the base of the neck and rolled it over, but it struggled
to its feet and ran uncertainly a few steps; then it dropped in a
little gully.
By the time I had begun to climb the hill Smith shouted that the pig
might charge again, and I kept my rifle ready, but the animal was "all
in." I circled warily and, creeping up from behind, drove my hunting
knife into its heart; even then it struggled to get at me before it
rolled over dead.
Smith was streaming blood from a score of scratches, and his clothes
were in ribbons, but his face was radiant. "I'd have chased the blasted
pig clear to Peking," he said. "All my shells are gone, but I wasn't
going to let him get away. If I hadn't kept that last cartridge he'd
have caught me, surely."
It was fine enthusiasm and, if ever a man deserved his game. Smith
deserved that sow. The animal had been shot in half a dozen places; two
legs were broken, and at least three of the bullets had reached vital
spots. Still the brute kept on. Any one who thinks pigs are easy to
kill ought to try the ones in Shansi! The sow weighed well over three
hundred pounds, and it required six men to carry the two pigs into
camp. We got no more, although we saw two others, but still we felt
that the day had not been ill spent. As long as I live I shall never
forget Smith's hurdle race after that old sow.
Although I killed two roebuck, the next day I returned to camp with
rage in my heart. Smith and I had separated late in the afternoon, and
I was hunting with an old Chinese when we discovered three pigs--a huge
boar, a sow, and a shote--crossing an open hill. Crawling on my face,
I reached a rock not seventy yards from the animals. At the first shot
the boar pitched over the bluff into a tangle of thorns, squealing
wildly. My second bullet broke the shoulder of the sow, and I had a mad
chase through a patch of scrub, but finally lost her.
When I returned to get the big boar I discovered my Chinese squatted on
his haunches in the ravine. He blandly informed me that the pig could
not be found. I spent the half hour of remaining daylight burrowing in
the thorn scrub without success. I learned later that the native had
concealed the dead pig under a mass of stones and that during the night
he and his confreres had carried it away. Moreover, after we left, they
also got the sow which I had wounded. Although at the time I did not
suspect the man's perfidy, nevertheless it was apparent that he had not
kept his eyes on the boar as I had told him to do; otherwise the pig
could not possibly have escaped.
We had one more day of hunting because Smith had obtained two
weeks' leave. The next morning dawned dark and cloudy with spurts
of hail--just the sort of weather in which animals prefer to stay
comfortably snuggled under a bush in the thickest cover. Consequently
we saw nothing all day except one roebuck, which I killed. It was
running at full speed when I fired, and it disappeared over the crest
of a hill without a sign of injury. Smith was waiting on the other
side, and I wondered why he did not shoot, until we reached the summit
and discovered the deer lying dead in the grass. Smith had seen the
buck plunge over the ridge, and just as he was about to fire, it
collapsed.
We found that my bullet had completely smashed the heart, yet the
animal had run more than one hundred yards. As it fell, one of its
antlers had been knocked off and the other was so loose that it dropped
in my hand when I lifted the head. This was on December 11. The other
bucks which I had killed still wore their antlers, but probably they
would all have been shed before Christmas. The growth takes place
during the winter, and the velvet is all off the new antlers by the
following May.
On the way back to camp we saw a huge boar standing on an open
hillside. Smith and I fired hurriedly and both missed a perfectly easy
shot. With one of the Chinese I circled the ridge, while Smith took
up the animal's trail. We arrived on the edge of a deep ravine just
as the boar appeared in the very bottom. I fired as it rushed through
the bushes, and the pig squealed but never hesitated. The second shot
struck behind it, but at the third it squealed again and dived into a
patch of cover. When we reached the spot we found a great pool of blood
and bits of entrails--but no pig. A broad red patch led through the
snow, and we followed, expecting at every step to find the animal dead.
Instead, the track carried us down the hill, up the bottom of a ravine,
and onto a hill bare of snow but thickly covered with oak scrub.
While Smith and I circled ahead to intercept the pig, the Chinese
followed the trail. It was almost dark when we went back to the men,
who announced that the blood had ceased and that they had lost the
track. It seemed incredible; but they had so trampled the trail where
it left the snow that we could not find it again in the gloom.
Then Smith and I suspected what we eventually found to be true,
viz., that the men had discovered the dead pig and had purposely led
us astray. We had no proof, however, and they denied the charge so
violently that we began to think our suspicions were unfounded.
We had to leave at daylight next morning in order to reach Peking
before Smith's leave expired. Two days after we left, one of my friends
arrived at Kao-chia-chuang, where we had first hunted, and reported
that the Chinese had brought in all four of the pigs which we had
wounded. One of them, probably the boar we lost on the last night,
was an enormous animal which the natives said weighed more than five
hundred pounds. Of course, this could not have been true, but it
probably did reach nearly four hundred pounds.
What Smith and I said when we learned that the scoundrels had cheated
us would not look well in print. However, it taught us several things
about boar hunting which will prove of value in the future. The Chinese
can sell wild pig meat for a very high price since it is considered
to be a great delicacy. Therefore, if I wound a pig in the future I
shall, myself, follow its trail to the bitter end. Moreover, I learned
that, to knock over a wild boar and keep him down for good, one needs a
heavy rifle. The bullet of my 6.5 mm. Mannlicher, which has proved to
be a wonderful killer for anything up to and including sheep, has not
weight enough behind it to stop a pig in its tracks. These animals have
such wonderful vitality that, even though shot in a vital spot, they
can travel an unbelievable distance. Next time I shall carry a rifle
especially designed for pigs and thieving Chinese!