Beasts of Chase. 2 1 5 



and so terrible to behold, that at first sight it almost 

 daunted the courage of the Spanish knight; for its mon- 

 strous head seemed ugly and deformed, its eyes sparkled 

 like a fiery furnace, its tusks, more sharp than spikes of steel, 

 and from its nostrils fumed such a violent breath, that it 

 seemed like a tempestuous whirlwind ; his bristles were 

 harder than seven times solid brass, and his tail more 

 loathsome than a wreath of snakes. A gruesome beast, 

 indeed ! — and standing in no need of the wings which 

 ^lian gives to the Flying Hog of Clazomenae to make it 

 worthy the steel of a knight of Christendom. 



But Pope need not have described the wild boar " in 

 silence creeping " upon a sleeping youth, and goring him 

 " with unrelenting tooth." It is far too " generous," in the 

 poets' sense, to attack a sleeping adversary. Why, too, 

 should Scott go out of his way to call it " the felon boar ? " 

 The abuse is not more just than that poet's frequent 

 plagiarisms are creditable. 



" No man who has not been an eyewitness of the 

 desperate courage of the wild hog would believe in his utter 

 recklessness of life, or in the fierceness that will make him 

 run up the hunter's spear, which has passed through his 

 vitals, until he buries his tusk in the body of the horse or his 

 rider." " No animal exceeds him in ferocity ; he will boldly 

 charge the largest elephant who may have disturbed him 

 without further provocation." "There is hardly a more 

 dangerous brute to cope with. He will fight to the last, 

 and then die game." 



These are quotations from the foremost of Indian sports- 

 men and naturalists — Elliot, Shakespeare, Kinloch, Jerdon, 

 and others of equally established reputation. 



They are of the fighting caste — Gadites — men of war from 

 their youth up. If they meet each other there is a duel at 

 once ; any other beast, and a fight immediately commences. 

 They have absolutely no idea of giving way, or yielding the 



