A BAD ACCIDENT. 63 



tained his defiant attitude, and prepared to attack again. On 

 being reseated upright in the saddle, I felt for and missed my 

 right stirrup, and also experienced the sensation of a severe 

 rap on the right leg below the knee. Looking down, 

 therefore, I found the stirrup-iron and the lower half of the 

 leathers gone, and blood flowing out of a long rip in my 

 boot. Further on, dismounting, to make a closer inspection, 

 I saw that the Arab had a long cut from the right front of 

 his chest, up along his shoulder, from which he bled freely 

 the stirrup leathers had been divided as if by machinery, so 

 clean had been the cut ; and, lastly, there was a deep wound 

 inside the calf of my right leg through the stout hunting-boot. 

 It was satisfactory, under such circumstances, to perceive that 

 my gallant foe was as incapable of resuming the combat as 

 I was myself, but as for the Arab he was ready enough to 

 fight. The "Shikarees" having come up I re-mounted and 

 rode slowly to camp, while they retrieved the boar and 

 brought him in, he having gone a short distance only and 

 laid down to die. 



This boar measured thirty -seven inches, had very stout 

 and long tusks, and the toughest hide on his shoulders that I 

 ever saw, thick hairless shields like those of the rhinoceros. 

 Although old, he had lost none of his strength, and only a 

 part of his activity and speed. For myself, I received a 

 deep wound through the muscles of the calf into the shin- 

 bone of the leg, and was laid up by it for two months, losing 

 some two or three scores of boars which otherwise would 

 have graced the list for January and February. My horse's 

 wound healed rapidly under proper treatment, and he was fit 

 for work long before his master. I believe that all the 

 mischief was done by one cut of the left tusk, scoring first 

 the horse's shoulder, then severing the stirrup leathers, and 

 finally wounding me through the boot. 



While on the subject of cuts and wounds, I will recall 

 the circumstances attending a very severe wound inflicted 

 on a horse in some manner not made quite clear to this 

 day. 



