HUNTING PECCARIES IN TEXAS. 389 



get it free. The planters amuse themselves very much by 

 relating these adventures, as there are many mirth-provoking 

 scrapes connected with them. 



My first adventure with the peccaries I shall never forget. 

 I was stopping with a planter on Caney Creek for a few 

 days of rest and recreation. He was an old friend from my 

 native State, had been one of the early emigrants to Texas, 

 and was now settled with his brothers on a magnificent 

 plantation, of which their joint enterprise had made them 

 possessors. I was yet comparatively a new-comer, young, 

 eager, and withal the tragic incidents of my late initiation to 

 such life, an enthusiastic sportsman. Of course, I listened 

 curiously to their many relations of adventures in the chase, 

 which always form the chief topic of the social intercourse of 

 the border. It happened that the Peccaries had lately been 

 doing much mischief to their crops of grain, and as they 

 had been hunting them with great zeal and wrath, they 

 formed the principal theme of denunciation and narrative. 

 Their invective became quite amusing as they took me out 

 to show me several of their finest dogs, which had been 

 disabled by the shocking mutilation received in accidental 

 meetings with this fierce little animal. I say accidental, 

 because no dog could be found hardy enough to hunt it, after 

 having had one taste of its quality. The eldest brother told 

 me of a meeting with them the day before. He had walked 

 out with his rifle into a field of grain, on the border of the 

 plantation, to look for fresh traces of the bear, which, 

 together with the Peccary, had almost utterly destroyed his 

 corn. Here, by way of parenthesis, he exclaimed, " And I 

 did find the tracks of a whopping old he!" 



"Let us go hunting him then, this morning!'* we all 

 exclaimed in a breath. 



"Well, well, we'll see." 



When near the outside fence, he suddenly came upon a 

 drove of Peccaries in the very act of demolishment. It was 



