BATTEAUX.l 



liV i'lKLl), WUOJ), AM) WATKi:, 



[INDIAN IJAXl ui:. 



We have already alluded to battue sJiooting, 

 Tfhicli was formorly common in all parts of 

 Europe, as well as in Great Ikitaiii ; and 

 must again eliaracteriso it as a murderous pro- 

 ceedin<;, which lills us with horror, ratlier 

 than admiration, on account of the indiscrim- 

 inate slaughter perpetrated upon tlu! game 

 races on sucli occasions. In most books on 

 shooting, relative to the most distinguished of 

 these gatherings among the nobility and gentry, 

 they are minutely detailed; but they are of 

 little or no interest now to the real sportsman. 



In Sweden there is somctliiiig of the battue 

 shooting prevalent ; but it dillors, in some 

 essential particulars, from what was, and, 

 in some instances, still is, followed in 

 franco and Germany. Indeed, all over the 

 continent there are innumerable traces of 

 this kind of sporting with the gun; but not 

 of the kind which can add much to a 

 true sportsman's knowledge, or his love for 

 his favourite amusement. In every kind of 

 sports, there should, at least, be some portion of 

 reason and sentiment thrown into them, or 

 they will soon excite disgust, rather than plea- 

 sure, in the breasts of all who have any pre- 

 tensions to humanity, or are even a little re- 

 moved above the brutal biped, who is guided 

 in his pleasures neither by the laws of reason 

 nor the sentiments of humanity. 



In India, even, they have their hatteaux ; and 

 as long as these are confined to the destruction 

 of Buch animals as are destructive to man, 

 they are excusable, and may, by many, be con- 

 sidered even laudable. Mr. Johnson, in his 

 Indian Field Sports, gives us a description of 

 the manner in which one of these celebrations 

 is conducted. " The day before the hunt, or 

 driving commenced, several hundred people 

 were sent to the farthest extremity of the 

 reserved cover, where they fixed on a proper 



place, and set the nets, which extended al^out 

 a mile, not in continuation, but at intervulti. 

 They required four or five elephants, and 

 twenty or thirty bullocks to carry tht-n:. 

 E;ich net was about forty feet long, and seven 

 feet high ; the cords being of the size of a 

 man's little finger, lightly twisted, with meshes 

 about eight inches square, made without any 

 knot whatever, simply by twisting the cords into 

 one another, by which they were rendered 

 more elastic, less visible to the animal, and not 

 so cumbersome and heav}' as if made with 

 knots. Sometimes three or four knots were 

 placed in succession, touching, or overlapping 

 one another ; but more frequently they were 

 intercepted by jungle, which was made almost 

 impenetrable, by stakes driven down in the 

 midst of it, and thorns twisted between them." 

 Such are the preparations for an Indian 

 hattue, which is attended by men, women, 

 and children, all armed with some kind of in- 

 strument, either of offence or terror. The 

 children and the women, no doubt, carry the 

 instruments of terror, which are such as will 

 make the loudest noise, in order to frighten 

 the horned beasts from the jungle into the 

 nets laid to entrap them. The slaughter, on 

 these occasions, is sometimes immense ; but, 

 as it is generally perpetrated upon the most 

 ferocious and dangerous animals, it excites 

 emotions of a very different kind from those 

 that arise in witnessing the ignoble slaughter 

 of beautiful and unoffending birds. In the 

 destruction of the former, the inhabitants of a 

 village or town, secure with greater certainty 

 the safety of themselves and their property. 

 In the destruction of the latter, it deprives 

 the forest of one of the most beautiful of the 

 ornithological species, and retrenches the 

 pleasures of the naturalist, as well as those of 

 the true and considerate sportsman. 



551 



