32 • A BOLD BOAR. 



and ride down the steep side covered with large boulders, 



required a steady hand and nerve. I have seen a man ride 



his horse down the side of a nullah so steep that he would 



have been unable to get him up without the greatest difficulty; 



however, the Arab horse is wonderfully surefooted, and if you 



keep his head straight he will hardly ever fall, as he throws 



his hind legs under him if he trips with his fore. I have 



known the skin to be taken off the hocks after a ride down 



one of these hills. When the boar has been driven into the 



plain below, it is often worse riding than on the hill-side, as 



there are hidden holes and fissures and deep dry nullahs or 



watercourses to get across, as the boar generally selects the 



most difficult ground he can find. The beauty of hog-hunting 



is that you are hound and huntsman combined, added to which 



there is the intense excitement and the glorious uncertainty 



of racing for the first spear, for the boar will turn and twist so 



that any one well to the front has a chance. Then, when the 



spear is held up showing first blood, you have to fight the 



boldest, pluckiest animal I know. I once saw a boar receive 



eight spears in succession, charging each time like a knight 



at a tournament, and in one of these charges he actually forced 



himself. up the spear and got to the horse's flank. I rushed 



to the rescue, when he turned on me, and after receiving my 



spear, which went clean through him and was left in him, he 



sat down ready to charge the next horseman that came up. 



It is very dangerous leaving a spear in a boar, but some- 

 times it cannot be helped. We fully expected to find the 

 horse he had attacked badly ripped, but to our surprise he 

 was unharmed. On examining the dead boar we found he 

 had a broken tusk on that side — a lucky escape ! The rip of 

 a boar's tusk is like the cut of a razor. I once saw a fine 



