190 EXPERIENCES OE SPORT. 



places. The piqueurs are particularly clever in 

 tracking, and will tell you to an hour by the slot 

 how long he has gone. 



Debenham and myself agreed to send on our 

 horses to the forest that we were to draw, and 

 ride to cover in a voiture and take it easy. More- 

 over, we wanted to arrive on the ground with 

 clean boots and breeches, and astonish the 

 natives. We had got some way in the forest 

 listening to the extraordinary tales of prowess 

 and valour which our conducteur told us he 

 had performed amongst the pigs, when all of a 

 sudden he exclaimed, " Voila, messieurs, voila!" 

 jumped frantically off his box, and " swarmed" 

 up a tree in a jiffy. We looked, and about three 

 hundred yards ahead saw a herd of wild boar 

 crossing the road. There might have been some 

 nine or ten of them, but nothing would induce 

 our driver to come down again, nor did we see 

 him any more the whole day. He was found 

 hours after in a small cabaret, a short distance 

 off, frightfully drunk, and the woman told the 

 person who found him he had entered in a state 

 of the wildest fear, and drowned it in repeated 

 doses of >efa 



