Volume XIX. 



RECREATION 



AUGUST, 1903. 

 G. 0. SHIELDS, (COQUINA) Editor and Manager 



Number 2* 



HUNTING BLUE BULLS IN INDIA. 



W. H. FEE. 



One Sunday evening in February, 

 when the Ahmedabad mail train 

 pulled out of the Bombay terminus, 

 behind a good American locomotive, 

 I was one of the passengers. My 

 destination was Godhra, and 'visions 

 of deer, the woods and the fields were 

 rising before my eyes. Godhra is an 

 Indian town of about 20,000 inhabi- 

 tants, 350 miles North of Bombay, 

 and 90 or 100 miles Southeast of Ah- 

 medabad. The next morning, after 

 having changed cars at Anand Junc- 

 tion, I reached Godhra at 10 o'clock. 

 Mr. Robert Ward met me at the sta- 

 tion. He was to be my host and had 

 promised me some good shooting. 



The following morning we packed 

 such things as we should need for 

 4 or 5 days and took the train for 

 Nadiad, where we were to start out 

 on camels and try our luck on the 

 nilghai. The nilghai, or nilghau, Por- 

 tax tragocamchis, is one of the lar- 

 gest of antelopes, having much the 

 character of an ox, the horns, head 

 and muzzle of an antelope, the flat, 

 compressed neck of a horse, a thin, 

 erect mane, and a singular, beardlike 

 tuft of stiff hair growing out of the 

 middle of its throat. Its forelegs are 

 somewhat longer than the hindlegs, 

 and its withers rise so much as to give 

 it the appearance of having a hump. 

 The color of the females, and of the 

 males until full grown, is a light 

 brown. The bucks, after attaining 

 their full growth, turn to a deep, 

 slatey blue, which gives them their 

 name, the Persian nilghai meaning 

 blue bull. 



We were up not much later than old 



Sol the next day. After a hasty 

 breakfast, we mounted the camels, 

 Mr. Ward and I on one, and 4 men 

 on 2 others. When we had followed 

 the main road 10 miles, we branched 

 off and traveled a mile or so through 

 the fields. The average Indian field is 

 about an acre in area and is surround- 

 ed by cactus hedges. When there was 

 an opening the camel was steered 

 toward it, but when there was an en- 

 trance but no exit, the hedge had to 

 be cut by a man with a bill hook, 

 which is a curved knife 15 or 16 

 •inches long, fastened in the end of a 

 short bamboo pole. Once, when we 

 were waiting near a 3-foot fence for 

 a man to come and cut it, Ward drove 

 the camel close to the hedge, and with 

 a kick and a nudge with a stick he 

 made the beast jump over. As I was 

 not aware of the accomplishments of 

 his camel, I came near rolling off 

 backward when the huge beast raised 

 his forelegs, and when he put them 

 down on the other side I did my best 

 to go over Ward Sahib's head. 



We had had news as to the where- 

 abouts of a herd of nilghai, and it was 

 not long before a man came up to tell 

 us there were 4 bulls in a field half 

 a mile distant. The camel was made 

 to jee, or kneel, and taking our rifles, 

 Ward a .45 and la .303, we went 

 after the blue bulls. With the assist- 

 ance of friendly hedges, we were able 

 to get within 100 yards of the wary 

 animals. 



Bang ! A miss ! and a punch in the 

 ribs from my friend. The bulls, not 

 being able to see anything, as we were 

 well shielded by a big hedge, and the 



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