HOG-HUNTING. 65 



earliest tent club of which we have record, and 

 has not the sport flourished even until now ? In 

 Meleager's hunt, too, the earliest ' first spear ' we 

 read of was taken by one of the fair sex, the 

 lovely Atalanta, of whom we know that she was 

 a most sporting damsel, and did as much mischief 

 with her eyes as with the sterner weapons of the 

 chase. She deserves undoubtedly great credit 

 for having introduced a fashion that has never 

 changed for some thousands of years (let us say), 

 viz., that of giving the tusks of the boar to the 

 gainer of the ' first spear,' and then can we have 

 a doubt that hog-hunting, less euphoniously 

 termed c pig-sticking,' is an ancient as well as a 

 noble sport ? Think how often fashions have 

 altered, say, in the last twenty years, and then 

 imagine one far older than the nineteenth century. 

 Almost all great Eastern soldiers were hog- 

 hunters. Alexander the Great was one, so was 

 Wellington, so was William Havelock (not Sir 

 Henry); so, and keener than most, was the re- 

 nowned Sir Walter Gilbert, one of the few men 

 who ever fairly rode and speared a tiger ; so was 

 Sutherland, one of the founders of the Irregular 

 Horse ; so was Shakespeare, Jacob, Malcom, cum 

 multis allis ; so, last and best sportsman of all, was 

 the world-renowned ' Bayard' of Bombay, the 

 glorious James Outram, the truest type of chivalry 



