166 SHOOTING, ETC. 



both answer well in this country, though neither exist 

 there. The immense masses of fir-wood, and the great 

 tract of open hill covered with fern, young wood, and 

 juniper, constitute just the country that would suit both 

 or either. The common brake fern, Pteris aquilina, 

 grows in prodigious masses, and so thick, strong, and 

 compact, that I have come down the mountains by 

 sliding over its surface. The great fronds all slope 

 down hill, so that the surface if thick enough is quite 

 smooth; and to sit on it and let yourself slide down is 

 quite an easy process, but, as with the bamboo-grass, to 

 work up hill over the same ground is perfectly impos- 

 sible. It is in this dense kind of cover that wild 

 boar delight, as a rule only coming out during the 

 night. In a fine valley far north in Nambu, I deter- 

 mined one day to wait by moonlight in the rice-fields 

 for whatever came, deer or boar. I left the ship soon 

 after the moon had risen, and landing in a snug little 

 cove, walked quarter of a mile up the valley to where 

 a regular string of watch-huts were erected. My idea 

 was to relieve one of the watchers for the night by 

 taking his place. 



I had, however, no sooner reached the nearest hut, 

 and asked for admittance, than the inmate, who hap- 

 pened to be a female, set up an awful screeching, and 



