A Peccary Hunt on the Ntieccs, 357 



and cactus, not without getting a considerable number of 

 thorns in our hands and legs. It was very dry and hot. 

 Where the javalinas live in droves in the river bottoms 

 they often drink at the pools ; but when some distance 

 from water they seem to live quite comfortably on the 

 prickly pear, slaking their thirst by eating its hard, juicy 

 fibre. 



At last, after several false alarms, and gallops which 

 led to nothing, when it lacked but an hour of sundown 

 we struck a band of five of the little wild hogs. They 

 were running off through the mesquites with a peculiar 

 hopping or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men, 

 tore after them instantly. 



Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred yards, but 

 speedily tire, lose their wind, and come to bay. Almost 

 immediately one of these, a sow, as it turned out, wheeled 

 and charged at Moore as he passed, Moore never seeing 

 her but keeping on after another. The sow then stopped 

 and stood still, chattering her teeth savagely, and I 

 jumped off my horse and dropped her dead with a shot 

 in the spine, over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile had 

 dashed off after his pig in one direction, and killed the 

 little beast with a shot from the saddle when it had come 

 to bay, turning and going straight at him. Two of the 

 peccaries got off ; the remaining one, a rather large boar, 

 was followed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had killed 

 the sow I leaped again on my horse and made after 

 them, guided by the yelping and baying. In less than a 

 quarter of a mile they were on his haunches, and he 

 wheeled and stood under a bush, charging at them when 



