30 TWO METHODS OF PIG-STICKING. 
The '*Deal table hunt" of Ahmed-nugger was famous 
throughout India in those days; men came from all parts to 
join in it. The anticipation of one of those glorious meets 
became, as the old song has it, 
*' My morning thought, my midnight dream, 
My hope throughout the day," 
I shall never forget the excitement of my first spear; the 
hog was a small one, but from the enthusiastic expressions in 
my journal one would fancy it was one of the finest boars ever 
sUiin ! There are two methods of pig-sticking. The Ben- 
galees use a short jobbing spear loaded at the butt and the 
rider strikes almost down on the boar. In Madras and 
Bombay a bamboo spear between eight and nine feet in 
length is the weapon, and you ride at the boar with your 
lance in rest, as it were, but an old hog- hunter once said to 
me *' Don't attempt to poke your spear at the boar, you must 
hold it free and firm, and spmr him with your spurs I i.e., ride 
on to him holding your spear perfectly steady. 
1 once lost a splendid old boar by trying to prod him, it 
looked so easy. 
It happened in this way ; we had heard of a number of 
hog, and after some beating found a sow, a lot of squeakers and 
a boar, but they kept running from one field to another, the 
boar knocking over one or two beaters ; at last he came out 
close to me (upsetting a little boy in beautiful style, luckily 
without hurting him), and I followed him through a narrow 
strip of grain leading to the open without pressing him, which 
if done generally makes a hog double back* and I soon got 
him fairly in the midaun, when at him I went, my horse, " Old 
Duck,'* behaving beautifully, and I soon had the boar within 
