162 MODERN PIG-STICKING 



The Hunt Club shikari has a shot gun and a few 

 cartridges to make the wily old boar move. Nothing 

 less than a dose of No. 5 or 6 shot behind will make 

 some of the old fellows get up, much less break 

 cover. They know the game too well. The local 

 beater when he sees one of our old friends in a thick 

 bush, or even in the more open ground, has a habit 

 of looking the other way, and redoubling his yells 

 and screams when he has safely passed beyond 

 him. But to return to our beat. A line is formed 

 across the ban stiffened here and there with assistant 

 shikaries and those well known to be stout-hearted. 

 One party of spears is on either flank of the beat, 

 and moves with it ; the other two are forward on 

 opposite sides of the nullah, perhaps half a mile or 

 so on, and about a hundred and fifty yards or so 

 from the cover, concealed by bushes or trees. These 

 parties can dismount, but keep moving on from 

 vantage point to vantage point as the beat advances. 

 All along the edge of the jungle as far as the beat 

 is to go flagmen are placed in trees to flag the 

 parties on to a rideable boar which has broken to a 

 flank. One's sport depends largely on these men, 

 and how often do they disappoint one ! When pig 

 would not break we tried two lines of beaters 

 following each other with an interval of a hundred 

 yards or so. This was fairly successful. But I am 

 sure that many of the oldest and biggest boars were 

 never driven out of cover. Stories of their gigantic 

 size and exceeding fierceness were many. Some- 

 times we got them as " outliers," and even then 

 they required a charge of shot to make them leave 

 the cover they were in. Abuse, clods of earth, 

 stones, and sticks were useless. 



Suppose now, reader, you and I are with one 



