The Badminton Library
OF
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
EDITED BY
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G.
ASSISTED BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON
_BIG GAME SHOOTING_
I.
[Illustration: THE LION’S LAST CHARGE]
BIG GAME SHOOTING
BY
CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
SIR SAMUEL W. BAKER, W. C. OSWELL, F. J. JACKSON,
WARBURTON PIKE, AND F. C. SELOUS
[Illustration]
VOL. I.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES WHYMPER, J. WOLF
AND H. WILLINK, AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1894
_All rights reserved_
_DEDICATION TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES_
BADMINTON: _May 1885_.
Having received permission to dedicate these volumes, the BADMINTON
LIBRARY OF SPORTS and PASTIMES, to HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF
WALES, I do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the best and
keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from personal observation,
that there is no man who can extricate himself from a bustling and
pushing crowd of horsemen, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously
and quickly than His Royal Highness; and that when hounds run hard
over a big country, no man can take a line of his own and live with
them better. Also, when the wind has been blowing hard, often have I
seen His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and partridges and
high-rocketing pheasants in first-rate workmanlike style. He is held
to be a good yachtsman, and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is
looked up to by those who love that pleasant and exhilarating pastime.
His encouragement of racing is well known, and his attendance at the
University, Public School, and other important Matches testifies to
his being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly sports. I
consider it a great privilege to be allowed to dedicate these volumes
to so eminent a sportsman as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
and I do so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal
devotion.
BEAUFORT.
[Illustration: BADMINTON]
PREFACE
A few lines only are necessary to explain the object with which these
volumes are put forth. There is no modern encyclopædia to which the
inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of the various
British Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some books there
are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing,
and so on; but one Library, or succession of volumes, which treats
of the Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen--and women--is
wanting. The Badminton Library is offered to supply the want. Of the
imperfections which must be found in the execution of such a design we
are conscious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, that those
who are seeking for knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will
find the results of many years’ experience written by men who are in
every case adepts at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to
point the way to success to those who are ignorant of the sciences they
aspire to master, and who have no friend to help or coach them, that
these volumes are written.
To those who have worked hard to place simply and clearly before the
reader that which he will find within, the best thanks of the Editor
are due. That it has been no slight labour to supervise all that
has been written, he must acknowledge; but it has been a labour of
love, and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, by
the unflinching, indefatigable assistance of the Sub-Editor, and by
the intelligent and able arrangement of each subject by the various
writers, who are so thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they
treat. The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful
to this and future generations.
THE EDITOR.
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY
_By Clive Phillipps-Wolley._ 1
II. SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO
_By W. Cotton Oswell, and Biographical Sketch by
Sir Samuel W. Baker._ 26
III. SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA
_By W. Cotton Oswell._ 88
IV. LATER VISITS TO SOUTH AFRICA
_By W. Cotton Oswell._ 119
V. WITH LIVINGSTONE IN SOUTH AFRICA
_By W. Cotton Oswell._ 142
VI. EAST AFRICA--BATTERY, DRESS, CAMP GEAR, AND STORES
_By F. J. Jackson._ 154
VII. GAME DISTRICTS AND ROUTES
_By F. J. Jackson._ 166
VIII. THE CARAVAN, HEADMAN, GUN-BEARERS, ETC.
_By F. J. Jackson._ 176
IX. HINTS ON EAST AFRICAN STALKING, DRIVING, ETC.
_By F. J. Jackson._ 185
X. THE ELEPHANT
_By F. J. Jackson._ 204
XI. THE AFRICAN BUFFALO
_By F. J. Jackson._ 214
XII. THE LION
_By F. J. Jackson._ 236
XIII. THE RHINOCEROS
_By F. J. Jackson._ 251
XIV. THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
_By F. J. Jackson._ 269
XV. OSTRICHES AND GIRAFFES
_By F. J. Jackson._ 275
XVI. ANTELOPES
_By F. J. Jackson._ 279
XVII. THE LION IN SOUTH AFRICA
_By F. C. Selous._ 314
XVIII. BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA
_By Clive Phillipps-Wolley._ 346
XIX. MUSK OX
_By Warburton Pike._ 428
INDEX 437
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE FIRST VOLUME
(_Reproduced by Messrs. Walker & Boutall_)
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
ARTIST
THE LION’S LAST CHARGE C. Whymper Frontispiece
A CLOSE SHOT Major H. Jones to face p. 8
MOLOPO RIVER Joseph Wolf ” 10
ODDS--3 TO 1 ” ” 90
FEELING BOTH HORNS OF A DILEMMA ” ” 116
THE DROP SCENE ” ” 120
ELEPHANTS--ZOUGA FLATS ” ” 128
THREATENING OF ELEPHANTIASIS ” ” 140
A DIFFICULT STALK C. Whymper ” 166
‘TEEMING WITH GAME’ ” ” 174
CAMP WITH BOMA AT SIDE From a photograph by E. Gedge ” 176
THE BUSHMAN’S STRATAGEM C. Whymper ” 198
RESTING THE 4-BORE ON THE FALLEN TREE ” ” 212
GOOD GUIDES ” ” 244
THE RHINO RAISED HERSELF LIKE A HUGE PIG ” ” 258
A FAMILY GROUP ” ” 276
A GROUP OF SOUTH AFRICAN ANTELOPES ” ” 314
STANDING STILL AS STONE IMAGES ” ” 368
MOOSE AT HOME ” ” 398
WAPITI IN THE EMERALD PASS, C. W., from a photograph ” 402
BRITISH COLUMBIA
WOODCUTS IN TEXT
ARTIST
SPRINGBUCK, STEINBUCK, BLESBUCK AND REEDBUCK C. Whymper 1
OVER THE FALLEN TIMBER 11
SKIN AND PACK 14
INTERLACED ANTLERS From a photograph by J. Lord 17
POOR OLD SAM C. Whymper 24
VIGNETTE H. Willink 25
DEATH OF SUPERIOR J. Wolf 52
A NIGHT ATTACK, LUPAPI 66
‘POST EQUITEM SEDET “FULVA” CURA’
THE LIONESS DOES THE SCANSION 70
DEATH OF STAEL 102
MANELESS LIONS 131
DEAD BUFFALO From a photograph by E. Gedge 154
EASY STALKING COUNTRY C. Whymper 168
AT LAST THE BULL TOOK A FEW STEPS FORWARD 193
A BABY ELEPHANT C. W., after a photograph by E. Gedge 204
DEAD ELEPHANT From a photograph by E. Gedge 213
BULL BUFFALO 216
BLISSFUL IGNORANCE C. Whymper 224
‘OFTEN ATTENDED BY BIRDS’ ” 226
THE BUFFALO WAS CLOSE UPON HIM ” 234
DEAD RHINOCEROS AND GUN-BEARER From a photograph by F. J. Jackson 252
‘I WAS KNOCKED OVER’ C. Whymper 262
‘IN THIS AWKWARD POSITION’ ” 267
DEAD HIPPOS From a photograph by E. Gedge 269
C. HARVEYI, G. PETERSI, N. MONTANUS, AND C. BOHOR C. Whymper 279
PLAN OF AN ORYX STALK F. J. Jackson 281
PLAN OF A GAZELLA GRANTII STALK ON ROMBO PLAIN 282
PLAN OF AN HARTEBEEST STALK 283
BUBALIS JACKSONI C. Whymper 291
ORYX COLLOTIS AND BUBALIS COKEI ” 294
KOBUS KOB 297
ADULT AND IMMATURE GAZELLA GRANTII 298
THE WALLERI 307
B. SENEGALENSIS C. Whymper 311
MY BEST LION 326
‘SPRINGING UPON HIS VICTIM’ C. Whymper 337
MY BEST KOODOO 344
PUMA (_Felis concolor_) C. Whymper 349
DEAD GRIZZLY From a photograph by A. Williamson, Esq. 352
SPECIMEN SKULL OF BLACK BEAR AND GRIZZLY BEAR From a photograph 354
‘SPRING IN THE WOODS’ C. Whymper 370
COLONEL BEDSON’S HERD OF BUFFALOES C. W., from a photograph 379
A PILE OF BUFFALO BONES C. Whymper 380
A GROUP OF BIGHORN 382
MR. ARNOLD PIKE’S GREAT RAM From a photograph 386
ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOATS 390
ANTILOCAPRA AMERICANA C. Whymper 393
A HERD OF PRONGHORNS ” 395
THE RECORD HEAD From a photograph 397
ABNORMAL PALMATED WAPITI HEAD 414
WOODLAND AND BARREN GROUND CARIBOU ANTLERS C. Whymper 415
TYPICAL MULE DEER (_C. macrotis_) From a photograph 419
ABNORMAL HEAD OF MULE DEER 420
THE WHITE-TAIL’S HAUNT C. W., from a photograph by J. Lord 422
GUANACO, C. PALUDOSUS, C. COLUMBIANUS C. Whymper 425
MUSK OX 428
VIGNETTE H. Willink 435
BIG GAME SHOOTING
[Illustration: 1 Springbuck.
2 Steinbuck.
3 Blesbuck.
4 Reedbuck.]
CHAPTER I
ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY
BY CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY
It may be asked, as to these volumes, why ‘Big Game Shooting’ should
find a place in a series devoted to British sports and pastimes,
whereas, except the red deer, there is no big game in Great Britain?
It is true that there is no big game left in Britain; but if the game
is not British, its hunters are, and it is hardly too much to say that,
out of every ten riflemen wandering about the world at present from
Spitzbergen to Central Africa, nine are of the Anglo-Saxon breed.
It may be asked, again, what justification there is for the animal
life taken, and for the time and money spent in the pursuit of wild
sport?
That, too, is an easy question to answer. Luckily for England, the old
hunting spirit is still strong at home, and the men who, had they lived
in Arthur’s time, might have been knights-errant engaged in some quest
at Pentecost, are now constrained to be mere gunners, asking no more
than that their hunting-grounds should be wild and remote, their quarry
dangerous or all but unapproachable, and the chase such as shall tax
human endurance, human craft, and human courage to the uttermost.
If in these days of ultra-civilisation an apology is needed for such
as these, let it be that their sport does no man any harm; that it
exercises all those masculine virtues which set the race where it is
among the nations of the earth, and which but for such sport would rust
from disuse; that if the hunter of big game takes life, he often enough
stakes his own against the life he takes; and if he be one of the right
sort, he never wastes his game.
Incidentally, however, the hunter does a good deal for his race and for
the men who come after him; something for science, for exploration, and
even for his worst enemy--civilisation.
In Africa, hunting and exploration have gone hand in hand; in America
the hunters have explored, settled, and developed much of the country,
replacing the buffalo with the shorthorn and the Hereford; while in
India, not the least amongst those latent powers which enable us to
govern our Asiatic fellow-subjects is the respect won by generations of
English hunters from the native shikaries and hillmen.
From Africa to Siberia the story of exploration has never varied. The
world’s pioneers have almost invariably belonged to one of two classes.
It has been the love of sport, or the lust of gold, which has led men
first to break in upon those solitudes in which nature and her wild
children have lived alone since the world’s beginning. Hunters or gold
prospectors still find the mountain passes, through which in later
days the locomotives will rush and the world’s less venturous spirits
come in time to reap their harvests and make fortunes in the footsteps
of those who ask nothing better than to spend their strength and
wealth in the first encounter with an untrodden world, living as hard
as wolves, and content to think themselves rich in the possession of
a few gnarled horns and grizzled hides. As for us who are Englishmen,
it is well for us to remember that in most lands in which we shoot we
are but guests, and the beasts we hunt are not only the property of
the natives, but one of their most important sources of food supply.
Bearing this in mind, we should be moderate in the toll we take of the
great game, and considerate even of those who may not be strong enough
to enforce their wishes. The recklessness of one man in a country where
foreigners are few may suffice to damn a whole nation in the eyes of a
prejudiced people, and it is worth while to recollect that any one of
us who strays off the world’s beaten tracks may serve for a type of his
nation to men who have never seen another sample of an Englishman.
Looked at from any point of view, the wholesale slaughter of big game
must be condemned by every thinking man. The sportsman who in one
season is lucky enough to obtain a dozen good heads does no harm to
anybody, and probably does good to the bands of game in his district
by killing off the oldest of the stags or rams. But the man who kills
fifty or a hundred foolish ‘rhinos’ (beasts, according to Mr. Jackson,
which any man can stalk) in one year, or scores of cariboo at the
crossings during their annual migration in Newfoundland, or deer and
sheep by the hundred in America, shocks humanity and does a grave
injury to his class. The waste of good meat is quite intolerable;
kindly natured men hate to hear of the infliction of needless pain,
and waste of innocent animal life; good sportsmen recoil in disgust
from a record of butchery misnamed sport, for, according to the very
first article of their creed, it is the difficulty of the chase which
gives value to the trophies. If there were no difficulties, no dangers,
no hardships, then the sport would have no flavour and its prizes no
value. The mere fact that a man can kill as many of any particular
kind of animal as he pleases should be sufficient to make him let that
beast alone, unless he wants it for food, as soon as he has secured
(say) a couple of fine specimen heads. Finally, to look at this
question from the lowest and most selfish standpoint, the wholesale
slaughter of wild game in foreign countries should be discouraged
unanimously by all who love the rifle, since men who kill or boast of
having killed exceptionally large bags of big game in any country are
extremely likely to arouse the natural and proper indignation of local
legislators, who have it in their power to close their happy hunting
grounds to all aliens for the fault of a few individuals, not by any
means typical of, or in sympathy with, their class.
On the other hand, it would be well if some of those of our own race,
who should know better, would be less ready to call other men butchers
merely because they have killed large quantities of game. Everything
depends upon the circumstances connected with the slaying. If a man
needs and can utilise a hundred antelope, surely he has as good a
right to kill them as if he were killing a hundred sheep for market.
There are occasions when not only does the hunter’s skill win the
regard of savages who value nothing in friend or foe more than real
manhood, but it is absolutely necessary to kill game in order to keep
a native following in food. Without the hunter’s skill, food would
have to be bought or looted from hostile natives, a feud engendered
which might end in the shedding of other blood than that of the beasts,
and a serious obstacle be thus raised in the path of the pioneers of
civilisation and trade.
Our big game sportsmen have made more friends than foes, have always
contrived to feed their men, and the very greatest of them have never
shed a drop of native blood. Where gallant Oswell or Selous have been,
there are no blood feuds against the English to hamper an expedition of
their countrymen.
So much for the ethics of Big Game Shooting; as to the practical side
of it, let it be said at once that it is impossible upon paper to teach
any man to become a successful big game hunter. Upon the hillside or
in the forest, with an expert to guide him, with the floating mists
to teach him something of the way of the winds, with game tracks or
the game itself before him, each man has to learn for himself, and
even then he learns more from his own mistakes than from anyone else.
To be really successful a man wants so many things; he needs so many
qualities combined in his own person. To be a good shot means but
little. The man who can win prizes at Wimbledon _may_ be a successful
deer-stalker, but it by no means follows that he will be. He has one
good quality in his favour, but even that quality varies with the
varying conditions under which he shoots. With his pulses steady, his
heart beating regularly, his wind sound, his digestion unimpaired, his
eyes free from moisture, with the distances measured off for him, and
with a bull’s-eye to shoot at, he may make phenomenal scores; but when
he has been living upon heavy dampers and strong tea taken at irregular
intervals, his digestion may become impaired. When he has toiled all
day and come fast up a steep incline at the end of a long stalk, his
pulse will not be steady, his sides may be heaving like those of a
blown horse, his eye may be dimmed by a bead of sweat which will cling
to his eyelash and fall salt and painful into his eye just when it
should be at its clearest. The distances are not marked for him, and
the atmosphere varies so much at different altitudes, that it is not
always easy to judge how far he is from his quarry, and that quarry,
instead of being marked in black and white for his convenience, has an
awkward trick of being just the colour of the hillside, with an outline
which at 200 yards melts into the background and becomes one with its
surroundings.
Many a man who shoots well at a mark is a poor shot in the woods; but
luckily the converse of this proposition is also true. Again, strength
and endurance, steady nerve and quick eyes count for much, but they
alone will not make a man successful.
The strong young hunter is often the worst. Likely enough he does
the work for the work’s sake, laughs at mountain-sides, and, like a
friend of our own, starts at dawn, travels all day, tells us at night
of peaks at fabulous distances on which he has stood, but comes back
empty-handed, simply because he is too strong, too fast, and runs over
ground leaving behind him, or ‘jumping’ out of range, game which a
feebler man might have seen when crawling slowly over the hillside or
sitting down for a frequent rest. One really good Western sportsman we
know advocates a very different system. ‘Camp,’ he says, ‘near where
game is, look out for likely places, and then go and sit about near
them all day long. If the game comes to you, you’ll probably get it; if
it don’t you won’t, and you wouldn’t any way. Somehows,’ he generally
adds, ‘them bull elicks allus did have longer legs than mine, d--n ’em.’
Perhaps a knowledge of natural history is almost better than either
great physical powers or exceptional skill with the rifle. If you watch
a first-rate tennis-player, it will seem to you that tennis is a very
easy game. The second-rate player performs prodigies of activity to
get into the right place in time, but the first-rate man never seems
to be obliged to exert himself at all. He always is where he ought to
be. So it is with the good man to hounds. His place at the fence is the
easiest, and yet he never seems to swerve or pick his place. In every
case it is the same. Knowledge of the game helps all the men in the
same way, and each in his own fashion picks his place; but he picks it
long beforehand. The tennis-player knows where the return must come,
the hunting man sees the weak place by which he means to go out at the
very moment that he comes in to a field, and in like manner the big
game hunter gets to where the big game is because he has calculated
beforehand where it ought to be, and experience and knowledge of the
beasts’ habits, and a certain instinct which some men have, do not
mislead him.
First, then, study the habits of wild animals generally. They are much
the same all the world over, and a man may learn a great deal by the
side of an English covert, when the rabbits and pheasants are running
before the beaters, which he can turn to good use when hunting bigger
game.
Why do you suppose some men always seem to get more shots than others;
why do the birds always rise better to them than to you? Pure luck
you think, and they perhaps don’t deny it. Don’t believe it. The true
sportsman knows by instinct what tussock of grass will hold a rabbit
as he goes by it, and if a rabbit is there he won’t let it lie whilst
he passes. You won’t see _him_ swing round, saving himself a bit and
leaving the likeliest corner in a big field unbeaten. The birds would
have sneaked down into the ditch and stopped there whilst you wheeled
by thirty or forty paces off, but our friend puts them up; and if when
those rabbits at the covert-side were bolting just out of range between
you and him, you think he dropped his white pocket-handkerchief on
the drive by mistake, you don’t know your man. That handkerchief just
turned them enough to bring them close by him, and he had awful luck
you know, and fired six shots to your one.
That is the way in big game shooting too. Partly from experience, and
partly by instinct, some men know where to look for a beast, and know
the ways of it when found. Study then the habits of beasts generally
to begin with, and then those of the particular beast you are going
to hunt. Learn what it feeds on at different seasons of the year, and
where its food is to be found; learn at what time of day it feeds, and
at what time it lies down. Most animals feed early and late, just at
dawn and just at the edge of night, sleeping when the sun warms them,
using what Nature sends them instead of supplying the place of the sun
with a blanket as we do. Many beasts are almost entirely nocturnal in
their feeding hours, and these not only such as one would naturally
expect to prowl by night--tigers, lions and suchlike--but ibex and
mountain beasts which feed on nothing worse than grass. Just at and
before dawn most beasts are up and feeding, probably because that is
the coldest time in the twenty-four hours; the beasts become chilled
and restless, and Nature warns them that food and motion are the best
cures for the evils they are suffering from.
Learn too, with the utmost care for yourself, upon which of its senses
each particular beast relies, for all do not rely upon the same sense.
The sense of smell is perhaps the most universal safeguard of the
beasts which men hunt, but all are not as keen of scent as the cariboo,
nor all as wonderfully quick and long-sighted as the antelope, of whom
Western men say that he can tell you what bullet your rifle is loaded
with about as soon as you can make him out on the skyline. A bear is
so short-sighted as to be almost blind on occasion, and no beasts seem
capable of quickly identifying objects which are stationary, though all
catch the least movement in a second. This of course is where the man
who rests often gets an advantage. If a beast is stationary in timber,
for instance, you may often look at him for a minute after your Indian
has found him before making him out; but if he but flick his ear or
turn a tine of his antler ever so little, it will catch your eye at
once.
In still hunting for wapiti or other timber-loving deer, a broken stick
will warn every beast within a quarter of an hour’s tramp; but on a
mountain-side, where stones are constantly falling from the action of
sun and wind and rain, ibex, sheep and other mountain beasts will often
take but little or no notice of the stones you dislodge during your
climb. Only be careful that these stones do not fall too often or at
too regular intervals.
[Illustration: A CLOSE SHOT]
In Scotland stalking is almost the only form of hunting deer; in
America and other wild countries there are two principal forms of
sport--stalking and still hunting; the one practised in comparatively
open country and in the mountains, and the other in those dense forests
where, partly from choice and partly because it has been much hunted,
most of the big game now harbours. In this series stalking has already
been dealt with, so that with this form it is only necessary to deal
briefly here. The wind is the stalker’s deadliest foe, and in many
of the countries known best to the writer (sheep countries for the most
part) there are days in each week when it is wiser to stay in camp
or hunt in the timber down below, rather than risk disturbing game
when the winds are playing the devil in Skuloptin. Take your Indian’s
advice, and stop at home on such days as these; play picquet with your
friend, look after your trophies, or write up your diary.
To any but the youngest hunters it seems superfluous to say that you
must hunt up or across the wind; to remind them of what a score of
authorities have said before about the lessons to be learnt from the
drifting mist-wreaths; to warn them to take care that they see the
beast before the beast sees them, and to this end to be careful in
coming over a rise in the ground; to put only just so much of their
head above the skyline as will enable them to see the country beyond,
and even then to bring that small part of their body up very slowly
and under cover of some friendly bush-tussock or boulder. In eighteen
years’ hunting the writer has met many men who might be forgiven for
believing that wild game never lies down, for whenever they have seen
it, it has been on its feet, looking at them. And no wonder, for some
of them would even _ride_ up to the top of a bluff before looking to
see what lay in the valley beyond. And yet, even after such a mistake
as this, there is a chance sometimes of retrieving your error if the
wind is in your favour. If, for instance, in riding from camp to camp
you suddenly come in full view of a stag, with a hind or two, walking
in the early morning along the ridge of the next bluff to that upon
which you and your Indians are riding, say a word to your men, and
let them either ride slowly on or stop absolutely stationary in the
same spot, whilst you slide out of your saddle and creep away on your
belly amongst the grass. Above all, _they must keep in full view_ of
the stag, and if they do this, in nine cases out of ten the stag will
not notice that you have gone, and whilst he stares intently at the
strange objects which he knows to be at a safe distance from himself,
you will have time to get round and make a successful stalk. Even the
hinds will be too intent on watching the other men to keep a proper
look-out in your direction. And this brings up another point. Take care
of the hinds and of those lean grey-faced ewes. The ram and the stag
are blunderers and reckless, especially in love-time; but the ewes
are as suspicious and wary as schoolmistresses, and must always be
watched carefully. If for a moment you see the grey faces turn in your
direction, _keep still_; keep still as a statue, even though you have
raised yourself upon your hands to peer over and have found out too
late that your palms are pressing upon the thorny sides of a bunch of
prickly pears. It will come to an end at last, though that fixed regard
seems never ending; but in any case, if you want a shot you _must_
be still, for if you try to lower your head and hide whilst they are
looking at you, you might just as well go home. This rule applies in
another instance. If you should by chance come upon a beast unawares,
stand stock still at once; don’t try to hide if it is a deer; don’t try
to bolt if it is something more dangerous. If you stand still, beasts
are slow to identify objects, and your deer may not be badly scared or
your bear may pass on with only a suspicious stare; but if you attempt
to hide, your deer will certainly show you his paces over fallen
timber, or your bear or tiger if bad tempered _may_ charge.
But you ought very seldom to run into beasts in this way, if you keep
your eyes open for ‘sign,’ i.e. tracks, droppings, freshly broken
twigs, and places where deer have been browsing, and if, as you ought
to, you take a good long time to scan every valley carefully before you
enter it. Of course you must not keep your eyes on the ground looking
for tracks--this is a fatal trick of a ‘tender foot’--but you can see
tracks well enough with eyes looking well ahead of you; and indeed, if
you are following a trail, you will find it more easily by looking for
it yards ahead of you than you will by searching for it at your feet.
[Illustration: MOLOPO RIVER]
Again, in looking for game you have at first to learn what to look
for. The deer you are likely to see will not be standing broadside
on, with head aloft like Landseer’s ‘Monarch,’ but will be a long
blur of brown on a hillside, with head stretched out almost flat upon
the ground in front of it, crouching (if it has seen you) more like
a rabbit than a lordly stag, or else it will be but a patch of brown
which moves between the boles of the pines, or a flickering ear, or a
gleaming inch or so of antler, or, worse than all, a flaunting white
flag bobbing over the fallen timber if it is a deer, or a dull white
disc moving up towards the skyline if it is a sheep which you have
stirred from amongst those grey boulders for one of which you mistook
it.
[Illustration: Over the fallen timber]
A common error which men make is to depend too much upon the eyes of
their gillie. That an Indian has better sight than a white man is
an article of many a man’s creed. I believe it to be a mistake. The
Indian is trained, he knows what to look for, and is looking for it.
The average white man who takes an Indian with him does not know what
to look for, and is relying upon his Indian’s eyes. Consequently the
Indian sees the game first, tries to point it out to his master, who
finds it just about the time that the beast has stood as long as it
means to, and is on the move by the time that the white man, flurried
by his Indian’s oft-repeated ‘Shoot! shoot!’ has found out what he is
to shoot at. Of course the result is a miss. If, instead of allowing
his Indian to go ahead and do the spying, the gunner had gone ahead, he
would in the course of a few weeks have learnt to find his own game,
and when he had found it he would have secured for himself those first
invaluable seconds when the beast was still standing uncertain of
danger and for the moment at his mercy. If only a man is enough of a
woodsman to find his way back to camp and to find again the game he has
killed, he will do far better to go alone than with the best of guides.
Two pair of eyes may be better than one, but one pair of feet make less
noise than two, and the man who finds his own game, and chooses his own
time to shoot, is far more likely to kill than the man who presses the
trigger at the dictation of an excitable redskin. That ‘Shoot, shoot’
has lost many a head of game.
Don’t be in a hurry when you have sighted game. If it has not seen
you it is not likely to move, and if it has you can’t catch it. Take
your time. Light a pipe if the wind is right, and if it isn’t the deer
will object to your smell quite as much as to the smell of tobacco.
Having lighted your pipe, con the ground over carefully, and plan out
your stalk at your leisure. It may be that you have come across sheep
in an utterly unapproachable position, lying down for their midday
siesta. If so, lie down for yours too, keeping an eye open to watch
their movements. Towards evening first one old ram will get up and
stretch himself (and perhaps turn round and lie down again) and then
another; but eventually they will feed off slowly over the brow, and
then you can run in and make your stalk. If there is a good head in
the band your patience will not be without its reward. Again, when you
have made your stalk and are safe behind your boulder at 150 or 200
yards from your beast, don’t be in a hurry. If your eyes are dim and
you cannot see your foresight clearly, shut your eyes and wait. There
is no more reason why the beasts should see you now than half an hour
ago. Wait till your hand is steady and your eye clear; don’t look too
much at the coveted horns (as my gillies always said that I did); shoot
_not_ at the whole beast, but at the vital part behind or through the
shoulder; and remember that you have worked days perhaps for the chance
you will either take or miss in the next few seconds. Remember that a
man shoots _over_ three times for every once he shoots too low. Put
your cap under your rifle if you are going to shoot from a rock rest;
shoot from a rest whenever you can, and if you miss the first shot, do
as the Frenchman wanted to when pheasant shooting, i.e. wait until he
stops. If it is a ram or a deer, unless he has seen or winded you, it
is a thousand to ten that he will stop within 50 yards or so to look
back to see what frightened him before leaving the country. When he
stops you will get another chance at a stationary object, and one shot
of this kind is worth a good many ‘on the jump.’ If a beast does not
look likely to stand again after the first shot, a sharp whistle will
sometimes stop him.
You will hear, especially from Americans, who very often can shoot
uncommonly well with the Winchester, and from Indians, who are the
poorest shots in the world, of extraordinary shots at long ranges.
Pay no attention to them. If you cannot get within 200 yards of game,
except antelope in an open country, you are a poor stalker; and rely
upon it more game is killed within 80 yards than is fired at over 200.
Indians get what game they kill, not by their fine shooting at long
ranges, but by their clever creeping and stalking. At the same time,
there is a limit to everything, and if you attempt to get too close, a
glimpse of your cap, which would only make a deer stare at 150 yards,
will make him dash off as if wolves were after him at 50 yards.
Having dropped your stag, lie still (if you have wounded him only, this
is still more necessary) and reload, as many a man has been terribly
disappointed at seeing a deer which he considered was ‘in the bag’ get
up and go off from under the very muzzle of an unloaded rifle. But your
stalk may end without your getting a shot. Some puff of wind of which
you had no suspicion may warn your quarry before you get within range
of him, and if this happens, watch which way he goes, and do you go by
another way, for he will put every beast he passes in his flight upon
the ‘qui vive.’
In case of wounded game do not be in too great a hurry to follow it.
A wounded beast which is pressed will go on travelling just out of
range of you until night falls, even though you can see a hind leg,
broken high up, swinging loosely at every step he takes; but the same
beast will lie down very soon if he has not seen or winded his enemy;
his wound will stiffen, and in an hour he will be easy enough to stalk
again and kill.
[Illustration: Skin and pack]
When you kill your stag, don’t cut his throat, as a Tartar would do,
high up, thereby spoiling the head for mounting, but plunge your knife
into his chest. This will let out the blood and not spoil the neck.
If, when you kill, you are far from home, and want to pack your venison
home yourself, the Indian fashion of packing and carrying is the
simplest that I know. It is done thus:--
After grallocking, skin your deer and cut off his head. Skin well down
the legs, cutting off the feet at the fetlock joint, and spread the
skin out with the hair downwards. Now cut from a bush near by a stick
about as thick as your thumb, about three inches shorter than the width
of the skin just behind the forelegs. Lay this on the skin and stretch
the skin over it, driving in the points of the stick so as to hold the
skin taut at the width of the stick. Next cut two or three little holes
in the skin of each hind leg, and sew the two legs together by pushing
a small twig through alternate holes in the skin of either leg. This
will make the hind legs into a loop or handle. Now cut up what meat
you want into joints of convenient size, pack them neatly on the skin
behind the stick, fold up your pack and bring the stick through your
loop, so that the ends of it overlap and hold against the loop; put
the loop over your forehead or your shoulders, and there you are with
a fairly convenient satchel full of meat on your back, the hairy side
of the skin against your coat, and a sufficiently soft strap of skin
across forehead or chest to carry the weight. All this can be done on
the spot with no more adjuncts than your skinning knife and a bush to
cut twigs from. The only difficulty is that the head must be arranged
as an extra pack or must be called for on a subsequent occasion.
But your beast, though down, may not be dead, and apart from the
caution already given to load before going up to a fallen beast, there
is another worth giving. Many a man has lost his life by being too
anxious to handle his prize. One instance of a fine young fellow maimed
for life by a panther whose mate he had killed, and whom he was too
anxious to handle without sufficient investigation of the position,
occurs to me as I write, and an attempt of my own to turn over a wapiti
which was not quite dead elicited such a vigorous kick from the leg I
was hauling upon as sent me flying some yards into the scrub. If the
deer had had free play for his leg, he might have done worse than make
me a laughing stock for my Indians.
When you get your shot be careful where you place it, and if the beast
is moving towards you, let him pass before firing, if possible. If it
is only a deer, a raking shot, striking him even a little far back and
travelling transversely through him, will be much more likely to go
through vital organs and stop him than one fired from in front; and,
besides, a shot of this kind is not so likely to reveal the shooter at
once to the beast and elicit a charge, if the beast is a dangerous one,
as when fired right into his face.
Don’t, unless absolutely compelled to, fire at dangerous game above
you. A wounded beast naturally comes down hill, and you are likely to
be in its way if you fire from below; besides, a wounded beast will
come quicker down hill than up. If your beast should charge you, stand
still and go on shooting. Your chance may be a poor one, but in nine
cases out of ten it is the best you have got.
[Illustration: Interlaced antlers]
But if after all your care, and even after you have heard (or think
that you have heard) the bullet smack upon your stag’s shoulder, he
should show absolutely no sign of being hit, except perhaps a slight
shiver or contraction of his muscles--if even he should turn and bolt
at headlong speed--do not be at once discouraged; no, not even if you
should follow him for many hundred yards without finding a single
splash of blood upon the trail. Don’t listen to your Indian, if you
have reason to think that you held straight, even though appearances
justify his assertion that you made a clean miss. That little spasmodic
shiver is a hopeful sign. When you see your stag do this, you may be
very sure that he is hard hit in a vital spot, and he will not go far.
It he starts off at racing pace, he will probably pitch over on his
head, dead, at the end of a hundred yards; and even if he does not
bleed at first, follow him persistently: flesh wounds often bleed more
freely than more dangerous ones, and it is quite on the cards that
you will at last find that your stag was hit after all (far back,
perhaps), and you may get him, although the shot hardly deserved such
a prize. In any case it is your duty as an honest sportsman to do your
utmost to find out whether you have wounded a beast, and, if so, to do
all in your power to secure him and put an end to his pain, rather than
leave him to take a better chance which may offer.
The greater part of what has been written so far applies either to
shooting big game generally or to stalking: a word or two may well be
devoted to still hunting--a form of the chase much practised in America
and other well-wooded countries.
_Still Hunting_
Almost every fresh form of sport brings a fresh set of muscles, a
hitherto little used sense or mental quality, into play, so that an
all-round sportsman should be that very exceptional animal, a man in
the full possession of all his faculties.
On the mountains a man depends upon his feet and upon his eyes; in the
woods he has to place at least as much reliance upon his ears as upon
his eyes; whilst his feet in still hunting are to the beginner the very
curse and bane of his existence.
Except in wet weather or to a redskin, still hunting is an
impossibility in any true sense of the term. When for weeks in Colorado
there has not fallen one drop of rain, when sun and wind have parched
the whole face of Nature, every twig and every fallen leaf upon the
forest floor become absolutely explosive, and the merest touch will
make them ‘go off’ with a report loud enough to be heard in London.
Damp weather is, then, the first essential for successful still
hunting; but even then, when the leaves crush noiselessly under foot
and fallen twigs bend instead of snapping, the utmost patience and care
are necessary.
With a pair of good shooting boots, English made, with wide welts and
plenty of nails in them--boots, for choice, which would run about two
to the acre--with his rifle over his shoulder, and a handful of loose
change in the pocket of his new American overalls, any average young
man may go confidently into the best woods in America, certain that in
a fortnight of hard work he will see nothing except what Van Dyke calls
‘the long jumps’ (i.e. tracks of startled deer) or those waving white
flags popping over the fallen logs which those gunners only may hope to
stop who habitually shoot snipe with a Winchester.
The man who is generally successful as a still hunter is he who knows
the haunts and habits of the deer, who travels slowly in the woods,
constantly stopping to listen and look ahead, who not only takes care
to wear clothes of the softest material, with moccasins or tennis-shoes
upon his feet, but who always has a hand ready to move an obstinate
briar or obstructive rampike gently out of his way before it has time
to rasp against his clothes or trip him and pitch him upon his head.
The first thing to remember in entering upon this sport is that every
live thing in the woods is watching and listening at least three parts
of its waking life, and that your only chance of success is to catch
it off its guard in those rare moments when it is either feeding or
moving, and therefore making a noise itself. A moving object is more
easily seen than a stationary one, therefore do you stand or sit still
from time to time among thick cover on some ridge or other commanding
position, and watch the woods, peer through the thickets, and make
certain that they are untenanted, before you blunder through them.
When a log upon which your eyes have been dwelling idly for several
minutes gets up as you move, and goes off with a snort, before you can
get your rifle to your shoulder, you will realise more thoroughly how
hard it is to distinguish stationary game in cover. Keep your ears,
too, on the alert: a bear will move through a dry azalea bush, when
he pleases, almost less noisily than a blackbird, and his great soft
feet make far less sound on the dead leaves than yours do. Slow ears
are almost as bad as slow eyes in still hunting; but do not condemn
either your eyes or ears as worse than the natives’ until the eyes have
learned from experience what to take note of, and the ears which are
the sounds worth listening to. In time the language of the forest will
become plain to you, whether it is spoken in the voices of birds and
beasts, in the rustlings and scurryings amongst the bushes, or written
in tracks upon the great white page of new-fallen snow at your feet;
but at first your ears will send many a false message to your brain.
In the intensity of the stillness the fir cones which the squirrels
drop make you start, expecting to see the bushes divide for a bull
moose at least to pass through them: at night, when you are watching
by the river for bear, you think that you hear distinctly the ‘splosh,
splosh’ of the grizzly’s feet as he wades down the shallows towards
you. Not a bit of it: it is only a foolish kelt who has run himself
aground and is trying to kick himself off again into deep water. On the
other hand, that grating of one bough against another which you fancied
that you heard may have been a ‘bull elk’ burnishing his antlers
against a cottonwood-tree, that far-away whistle of the wind may
have been a fragment of a forest monarch’s love-call, and that angry
squirrel across the canyon was actually chattering _not_ because he had
seen you, but because he was disturbed by a bear passing by the log on
which he was sitting.
But the language of the woods can only be learnt by residence amongst
them, and this is especially true of the written language of tracks,
which is to my mind one of the few things utterly beyond a white man’s
powers ever thoroughly to master. Such proficiency as a man may acquire
in tracking he must acquire for himself in the woods, since any essay
upon it would need more illustrations than words to make the meaning
plain.
Fishing is said to require patience. Believe me, still hunting requires
more. Although you have toiled all day and seen nothing; although you
are hot, ‘played out,’ and therefore intensely irritable (perhaps you
have even a touch of fever upon you); although every log on your way
home ‘barks’ your shins, and every tendril clings to your ankle--you
_must_ keep your temper; and even when that thorny creeper hooks you by
the fleshy part of your nose, you must not swear--at least, not aloud.
If you do, at the very moment that the words leave your lips, the only
beast you have seen all day will get up with a contemptuous snort from
_the other side_ of the bush in front of you.
But when all is written that can be written upon ‘still hunting,’
there is still much which can only be taught in the woods--or, if on
paper, then it has been done already, as well as man could possibly
do it, in the pages of the best book ever written by an American, Van
Dyke’s ‘Still Hunter.’ I am glad to have a chance of acknowledging my
indebtedness to this author. Whatever I know of still hunting I have
learned from his book and from experience, and have never yet known my
two teachers disagree.
There is only one word which I would add here, but it is the most
important that I shall write. There is one danger in still hunting in
the woods more terrible than any other which the big game hunter can
encounter: the danger, I mean, of accidentally shooting his fellow-man.
Make a rule for yourself before you go into the woods, and keep it as
the first of sylvan commandments: Never, under any pretence whatever,
pull your trigger until you know not only _what_ you are shooting at,
but also _at what part of_ your beast you are shooting.
Once in a while the observance of this rule may lose you a beast which
you might have crippled, and eventually secured if you had taken a
snap shot at the grey thing which you saw moving in the bushes. But, on
the other hand, instead of killing a bear or a buck, it is much more
likely that your snap shot will wound some poor devil of a hind, who
will sneak away to die in anguish somewhere in the thick covert where
none but the jackal will benefit by her death; or else you may do as
I once actually did--hit a bear in the seat of his dignity, thereby
arousing his very righteous indignation in a way that is dangerous to
the offending party; or, worse still, you may (as I _nearly_ did) fire
upon your own gillie or friend, whose moccasined footfall is very like
a bear’s tread, and whose sin in wandering across your beat would be
too severely punished by death.
In all seriousness, it has always seemed to me that any man who,
whilst out shooting, kills another in mistake for game deserves to
be tried for his life, unless he be a very young beginner--and young
beginners should hunt by themselves. There is no excuse for shooting
a man. If the shooter could not tell that that at which he fired was
a human being, much less could he tell at what part of his beast he
was shooting, and a random shot ‘into the brown’ of a beast is unsafe,
unsportsmanlike, and brutally cruel.
Finally, do not be tempted to use complicated sights in still hunting.
When you have followed deer under pines heavy with snow, through
sal-lal bush which looks like deep billows of the same, only to find,
the first time, that your Lyman sight is down, and the second time that
though erect the peephole is full of ice, you will recognise the merits
of a Paradox with the simplest sights for wood shooting in any weather
as thoroughly as the writer does, and whilst admitting the merits of
the Lyman sight for long-range shooting in the open, eschew all but
such simple sights in timber.
There are, of course, other ways of hunting big game besides those
already dealt with. Almost any game may be driven, from lions in
Somaliland and tigers in the Terai to chamois in the Alps and sheep in
North America, and there is no doubt that sufficient excitement and
a good deal of sport may be got out of the day’s work; but, after
all, the beaters who out-climb the Spanish ibex (as described by Mr.
Chapman in his ‘Wild Spain’) and the natives who risk their lives in
the driving, have always seemed to the present writer to be the men
who did the work, and were principally responsible for the success
of the day’s sport. To the guns who are posted by the organiser of
the beat little advice can be given, except to obey orders, stick to
their posts, be careful not to shoot at anything until it has passed
them--or, at any rate, at anything which is in such a position with
regard to the beaters and other guns as to make it unsafe to fire--to
keep their attention concentrated upon the business in hand, to make
all arrangements for concealment and ease in shooting directly they are
posted, and then to keep quiet. There is not quite enough in this form
of sport for the gun to do to please some men, but _de gustibus non est
disputandum_.
Night shooting is another form of sport, sometimes rendered necessary
by the shyness and nocturnal habits of such beasts as the grizzly
and the Caucasian ibex. There are charms in night watching peculiar
to the hour, which appeal particularly to the naturalist and lover
of outdoor life; there is a certain fascination in the mystery of
the night, the gloom of the great woods, and the awful stillness of
the white peaks; while the children of the forest always seem more
natural and less suspicious at night than at any other time. But it
needs every charm which the night can boast to tempt a man to sit hour
after hour in the shadow, without stirring, without speaking, without
even thinking of anything except the sport in hand, whilst the rain
runs down his spine in a strong stream, or a cold wind catches his
body, heated by the tramp to the ambuscade, and slowly freezes it. If
you must shoot at night, be careful about the wind: find out as well
as you are able from what quarter you may expect your bear, and take
care that your wind does not reach him before he reaches the carcase
by which you are hidden. Choose a spot where you have some chance of
making out his outline against the sky if he should come, and whether
you are watching by a carcase or by a salmon pool, be satisfied with
a _distant_ inspection of the bait, i.e.--don’t go and walk about all
round it, &c.
Bears are especially shy of returning to a carcase when they know that
men are about, one grizzly that I know of in British Columbia having
defeated a very well-known Indian sportsman by making a circuit round
the carcase before coming in to feed. If in that circuit he caught no
taint of human kind upon the night air, he used to come in and sup; but
if he found that I----y was on guard, he used to go quietly home to
a canyon down below, and wait for a more favourable opportunity. The
tracks in the morning told the whole story, of course, as plainly as if
the unfortunate sportsman had been a witness of the performance.
The principal difficulties in this kind of shooting are to keep
sufficiently quiet to induce your bear to come, and to see your sights
sufficiently to kill him, even at short ranges, when he has come.
Go to the spot as lightly clad as possible, carrying any spare things
you can on your arm; don’t hurry or overheat yourself on the way to
your ambush, and put on a spare flannel shirt or coat, or whatever it
is you are carrying, before you begin to feel chilled. Take a little
sheet of macintosh with you to secure you a dry seat, and if you
have no fancy night sights on your rifle, you can make a rough but
serviceable one by twisting white string or cotton with a large knot in
it round the muzzle of your rifle, while the thumb and finger of your
left hand, as they embrace your rifle barrels, may be held a little
apart to make a very coarse backsight. This is only a more or less
clumsy Indian device, but it is considerably better than nothing if you
get caught in the dark with no better appliances. After all, a sport
which keeps you up all night, and in camp without any exercise all day,
and which depends for success so entirely upon the good will of the
bear, is not one to hanker after.
By the way, when you have shot your bear (if you should shoot him),
and when you have taken his hide off, be careful how you pack it upon
any ordinary pony. A spark applied to a powder magazine is hardly more
astounding in its effects than the application of a fresh bear-skin
to the back of some of the meekest of cayuses. A perfect Dobbin which
belonged to the writer shook his faith in horseflesh for ever by
cutting his legs from under him as if they had been carried away by a
round shot, merely because Dobbin had been asked somewhat suddenly to
carry the hide of a two-year-old black bear.
[Illustration: Poor old Sam]
In all American sport, dogs are used from time to time by the trappers
and meat hunters who make hunting a business, and a thoroughly broken
collie, such as accompanied the writer and Mr. Arnold Pike in an
expedition to Colorado, would be invaluable to any still hunter, as
this dog would not run in without orders, would precede his master at
a slow walk in timber, regularly pointing in any direction from which
he got wind of a deer, would take his owner up to it at a walk, would
run a wounded beast to bay, follow and worry at the heels of a bear,
and keep the camp secure from the inroads of inquisitive strangers or
the all-devouring burros of our train. But such dogs as ‘Pup’ are rare,
and the old gentleman to whom he belonged informed me that an offer of
$500 for him would not be entertained, though his own whole ambition in
life was to make double that sum to buy a farm and settle down, as at
65 he was beginning to think that he was almost too old to stay all the
year in the woods. Poor old Sam! When one is too old for the woods, it
should be almost time to ‘turn in’ for that last sleep.
[Illustration]