126 MODERN PIG-STICKING 



an aged man, and two or three couple of brown 

 babies had come out of the house into the street 

 and set up a terrific waihng. One of us examined 

 them whilst the other watched the pig, and found 

 rather a nasty cut from the pig on one of the children. 

 However, Norman proved equal to the occasion 

 when he arrived with his farrier's box, and a few 

 coppers dried away all tears. 



These Purneah pig were very independent 

 customers when we first arrived, and several times 

 when we met pig coming towards us at a walk or 

 trot — not hunted pig — they cocked their ears and 

 went straight for us. We found that the sows 

 generally jinked in the last stride rather than charge 

 straight home. However, after a few days they 

 soon adopted other tactics and fled for cover. 



There were such quantities of pig in Poached Egg 

 and High Jhow that for the first week we beat one 

 of these coverts every morning. We usually break- 

 fasted about 4.30 a.m., and hunted from 5 a.m. to 

 11 or 12 noon. In the afternoon some of us would 

 go out with a gun for the pot, whilst others would 

 make an expedition to look up some outlying boar 

 of whom the villagers brought us khubber. 



These outliers were generally of the old and bold 

 variety. They would take up their quarters in the 

 outskirts, or even in the gardens of a village, and 

 the natives could not, or dared not, turn them out. 

 We generally used to take four or five elephants for 

 the purpose, and the villagers used to allow them 

 to walk over their gardens with pleasure as long as 

 we were likely to kill their enemy. It was amusing 

 to see the way the elephants helped themselves to 

 green bananas as they passed through the gardens. 

 There was not much difficulty in killing the boar 



