UNEXPECTED MEETING WITH A LEOPARD. 19 1 



whole composing the most wonderfully mixed bag 

 that can possibly be conceived. 



To kill wild boars a host of beaters are required, 

 and if such be a special object of the visitor, on his 

 route to the Laguna he should call at the village of 

 Sawnee, or Swanee, about four miles from Tangiers. 

 Here the hunters of his Excellency the late Sir 

 Drummond Hay used to reside, and among the 

 present inhabitants there would be little or no diffi- 

 culty in obtaining an attendant, capable and willing 

 to organize your drives. Having made allusion to 

 our former minister, with whom I frequently shot 

 and hunted, I would say that he was a wonderful 

 shot, and although, comparatively speaking, an old 

 man, was one of the most daring and reckless horse- 

 men I ever saw. True, he was always magnificently 

 mounted ; but, even under such circumstances, it 

 constantly made me nervous to see him thundering 

 down the steep side of a rocky hill strewn with boul- 

 ders, where a fall would have been almost certain to 

 produce death. 



I came across a leopard one day, but it escaped 

 without affording me a shot, although the vixen 

 knocked one of my pointers fearfully about. That 

 evening I sent information of my rencontre to Sir 

 Drummond Hay. Next morning he joined me with 

 a staff of beaters and a lot of dogs. A false alarm 

 was given about midday that our quarry was on foot. 

 His Excellency was at the top of a high bank, from 

 which I deemed it positively impossible for anyone 

 to ride, nevertheless he rushed his horse at it, and 

 came down over a hundred yards of such stone 

 and rubble that a pedestrian would have much 

 difficulty in traversing. 



Wherever your halting-place may be, the inhabi- 

 tants will be certain to inform you that their melon 

 gardens are nightly haunted by a wild boar as big as 



