THE AKMS ACT. 31 



fine boars, and obtained a good general knowledge of the line 

 usually taken by the animals when roused. I also picked up 

 another buffalo, a bull, left wounded by the herd among the 

 bushes and trees on the river bank, and this beast showing a 

 disposition to be " nasty," and disinclined to leave the covert, 

 had to be accounted for on foot, and was shot as he charged 

 up to within a spear's length ; the herd meanwhile had left 

 this ground altogether for the time. For four years I shot and 

 hunted over this and the adjoining country, on both banks or 

 the " Kapye " and the *' Huldee " rivers, enjoying splendid 

 sport, especially hog-hunting, mostly alone, but occasionally 

 joined by friends from Calcutta and Barrackpoor, who gave 

 me the pleasure of their company for a few days, and doubled 

 the enjoyment of my favourite sport by their presence. The 

 buffaloes had deserted that country before I left, and gone 

 southwards into Hidgelee, but up to 1860 the wild hog were 

 almost as numerous as ever, the sows and squeakers never 

 being molested, and native hunters being few and far ; but 

 ten years afterwards, when the Government salt manufacture 

 had been closed, the grass and fuel land rented out, and the 

 "jheels" drained, and the land sown with rice, hardly a pig 

 remained where they used to be found in hundreds. The 

 disappearance of the game in this case arose, of course, from 

 the grass and marsh lands having been reclaimed, and not 

 from its destruction by " Shikarees " or others. So, too, in 

 the Noakholly district, the grass " churs " of which swarmed 

 with buffalo, hog-deer and wild hog, thirty years ago, only 

 a few of the last will now be met with in the rice fields, which 

 have succeeded the grass and tamarisk-covered plains of that 

 district. 



One of the commonest arguments advanced in favour of 

 the abolition of the Arms Act, is that, restricting the possession 

 of firearms to a few, it prevents cultivators from protecting 

 their crops and herds from the ravages of wild beasts ; but 

 the fact is, that in the course of late years, firearms have 

 been trebled in the interior of Bengal, and every man of 

 honest repute has it in his power to possess a gun, the fee 



