122 
WILD BLASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
formidable as the old Roman sword. I have on 
more than one occasion stood against the charge of 
a sambur stag at bay, and met the attack with the 
point of the knife in the face, held firmly at arm’s 
length. This requires great strength of arm and a 
firm footing, but, above all things, a blade that is 
more dependable than the British bayonet. 
For seven years I kept my own pack of hounds 
at Newera Ellia in Ceylon, 6200 feet above the sea. 
During that time I was hunting regularly throughout 
a large extent of country, and I much regret that I 
kept a game-book only during the last two years 
of my residence in that delightful sanatorium. I 
commenced the diary at the instigation of a friend, 
to whom I owe much for the advice, which has 
afforded me intense pleasure when looking back to 
former years. In that journal I noted down every 
detail of each separate hunt, and when I regard the 
sum total, and remember that every animal was run 
down on foot, and killed with the knife, when brought 
to bay and seized by the hounds, I must acknowledge 
that anything that I have been able to accomplish 
since that time has been a mere nothing compared 
with the hard work of that interesting period. The 
journal commenced in October 1851 and ended in 
March 1854, at a time when severe illness neces¬ 
sitated an immediate return to England. In those 
years the diary shows the following list of killed :— 
Sambur deer, 138. Wild hogs, 14. Red-deer, 8. 
During only a portion of those years I was 
