C 193 ] 



CHAPTER XXU— Continued. 



YANGTZE NOTES. 



WUHU TO NGANKIN. 



By a. R. Greaves. 



r^ROM Wuhu for 14 miles in a south-westerly direction the country on each bank of the 

 * river is a long chain of paddy-fields, until Sanshan is reached, where ranges of high 

 hills meet together and terminate within a mile or so of the south bank of the river. A few 

 years ago pheasants and pig were very numerous within easy walking distance of the boat 

 anchorage, but now one has to go seeking further afield, as the native sportsman here as 

 elsewhere has of late years been much en evidence. 



The native hunters in these hills use spears for killing the pig. In the early months 

 of the year, the time selected by the sows for introducing their families to a midnight meal 

 of turnips or young winter wheat, and for imparting to them their final education before 

 turning them adrift in the world to forage for themselves, is the season for " sticking." At 

 dawn the hunters conceal themselves behind boulders, or trees at the side of the beaten 

 paths by which they know the pig will return to the lairs they frequent during the daytime. 

 Pig when disturbed invariably keep to the beaten paths, never leaving them for the thick 

 cover or open country, and when alarmed will either charge past the danger ahead or 

 charge back on the beaters following them. Parties of beaters start from the fields below 

 in which the pig have been rooting during the night, armed with guns and spears, and 

 either drive the pig past the concealed spears up hill who "stick" them as they pass, or 

 if the pig turn and charge back, as they often do, shoot or spear them. By these means 

 they either destroy the whole litter or frighten the survivors back into the impenetrable 

 cover of the higher mountain ranges : their object in hunting being the preservation of the 

 crops, not sport or profit from the sale of the slaughtered game. 



The large sandbanks just above Sanshan, which are dry when the river is at winter 

 level, are the resort during the day time of numbers of wildfowl — pelican, swan, geese, 

 duck, &c. 



At Sanshan a late well known Wuhu sportsman in 1891 put up a stag and two hinds 

 of the now very rare Cervus kopschi but mistook them for goats until they were out of range, 

 but as the natives assert that these deer frequent this neighbourhood usually early in the 

 morning his statement may be accepted as fact, at least until found to be unsupported. 

 The same "sport" once destroyed a buffalo calf instead of the expected boar. 



From Sanshan the Yangtze bends away from the high range of densely covered 

 mountains until it joints the foot-hills again at Pantzekee, a point conspicuous by its old 

 pagoda. Here may be found a fair sprinkling of pheasants and woodcocks, but unless the 



