378 



RECREATION 



secure, but a man will frequently find him- 

 self short of ropes, whereas, unless in great 

 straits, he will certainly have an axe with 

 him. 



Woodsmen generally speak of a small raft, 

 such as has been described, as a catamaran, 

 reserving the term raft for a large collection 

 of lumber logs. St. Croix. 



A DEER HUNT IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



Editor Recreation : 



Having been asked by a great many people 

 about the hunting in our new possessions, 

 and thinking that the readers of Recreation 

 might be interested in the story of one day's 

 shooting on the island of Luzon, I have de- 

 cided to write it for them. 



My father, who was in command of the 

 troops in Batangas Province, had been urged 

 by the natives to accept an invitation to shoot 

 deer on the Roax Hacienda, at Calatagan. 

 Calatagan is the name of a small town on the 

 western coast of Luzon, about sixty miles 

 south of Manila. The centre in years gone 

 by of a magnificent sugar plantation, now, 

 owing to the ravages of war and the death of 

 many of the domesticated animals, it is no 

 longer cultivated, but is grown over with 

 tropical jungle, an ideal home for deer and 

 boar. 



On May 4th, last, all arrangements having 

 been made for a day's sport, ten of us sailed 

 from Batangas for Calatagan, where we ar- 

 rived at early dawn, after a most delightful 

 trip, with a full moon and the Southern 

 Cross shining brightly overhead. 



After a hurriedly eaten breakfast, we were 

 rowed to the landing, where we found Sr. 

 Mariano Martinez, the master of ceremonies, 

 waiting for us, with saddle ponies and a cart 

 for our luggage. He was most courteous and 

 polite, assigning an attendant to each one of 

 us. 



We rode the diminutive ponies, our attend- 

 ants walking in front carrying our canteens, 

 ammunition, etc., up to the plantation house,, 

 which, by the way, is quite pretentious. The 

 walls are built of a kind of volcanic stone, 

 which, when cut out of the earth is soft, but 

 after exposure to the air becomes hard. The 

 woodwork was of hard wood_. some of which 

 was beautifully carved. Thie living rooms 

 were all on the second floor, the ground floor 

 being used as a granary. 



We proceeded from the house to the drive. 

 One hundred and fifty men with dogs and 

 contrivances for making a noise had been sent 

 out before daylight, to drive the deer, and 

 white lines made from the leaves of the tuba 

 palm, about two inches wide, and as thick as 

 a piece of heavy wrapping paper,_ were 

 stretched in' the shape of a V, the sides of 

 which were about two miles long. At the 

 point of the V our stands were situated. The 

 drivers and dogs being in the opening of the 

 V to drive the deer towards our stands. 



Every Fillipino carries a bolo, in the use of 

 which he is very skillful. They use the 

 bolo for everything imaginable, building 

 houses, fences, carving wood, etc., in fact, it 

 is their one tool. 



Upon arriving at your stand, the attendant 

 puts a small camp stool down, builds a blind 

 of green brush in front of it, and, if neces- 

 sary, raises a sun shade overhead. For my 

 part, I took a Winchester shotgun, and a 

 45-70 Springfield carbine. On my first hunt 

 I was advised to take only a shotgun. I fol- 

 lowed this advice, and from my stand I had 

 a clear view of a bare hill about one hundred 

 and fifty yards distant, on which during the 

 drive I counted ten deer. I could not ap- 

 proach this hill because of interfering with 

 some other stands. 



After getting seated in my blind I waited 

 for a couple of hours without seeing any- 

 thing, then some wild jungle fowl flew down 

 into a little open glade in front of me. The 

 Filipino jungle fowl is one of the most 

 beautiful birds in the world. It is about the 

 size of our bantam, and the cocks are beauti- 

 fully colored. 



After another half hour's wait I saw a deer 

 facing me about eighty yards' distant. I fired 

 and made an inexcusable miss. Shortly after 

 this the men who had been occupying the 

 stand next to mine came by on their way 

 home. I decided to try my luck in their 

 stand, and had not been seated ten minutes 

 when I saw a deer, but it saw me first, so I 

 did not get a shot. After about ten minutes 

 more, a third deer came running noiselessly 

 through the jungle. When it got to the line 

 it stopped, and I "blazed away, ' hitting it in 

 the head. The instant it dropped, my Fili- 

 pino ran out and cut its throat, and then 

 dragged it in behind the blind. 



About noon our attendants brought the 

 ponies, and we went back to the "Casa," 

 where out host served us a delicious oriental 

 dinner. 



Counting up the bag we found that we had 

 seven deer. After dinner we all took a 

 "siesta" for a couple of hours, then went out 

 for another drive. We succeeded in bagging 

 three more deer, and a wild boar, making 

 a deer for each one of the party. 



It is a peculiar fact that the deer would not 

 jump nor break the lines, when thev were not 

 more than two or three feet high, and very 

 little stronger than a piece of cotton twine. 



Upon our return to Batangas the deer were 

 put in cold storage. Three of them were 

 reserved for our homeward journey on the 

 U. S. A. T. "Thomas," many of whose pas- 

 sengers will remember with pleasure the ven- 

 ison captured on our Calatagan Hunt. 



Geo. McClellan Chase, 

 Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. 



With the foregoing, came the following 

 letter : 



I am a boy fifteen years old; I have just re- 



