XVII 
THE BOAR 
143 
Among sugar-plantations they commit terrible 
havoc, as they bite the canes to obtain the juice. The 
wounded portion bleeds and ferments, rotting the 
cane, and damaging the quality of the sugar. In 
fact, wild pigs may be classed as only second to 
rats as destroyers of general produce. 
I have never seen the wart-hogs of Africa in 
numbers approaching to the wild hogs of Asia: 
probably they are kept down by the lions and 
leopards. The hyaenas would destroy the little ones, 
although no such enemy would presume to attack a 
boar. 
The late Vice-Consul Petherick of Khartoum, 
who was one of the earliest traders upon the White 
Nile, was, like all the merchants of the Soudan, 
a collector of animals for the various Zoological 
Societies of Europe. Among other beasts that 
were kept in dens around the large courtyard of the 
Consulate, all of which were more or less insecure, 
there were two very large boars, with prodigious 
tusks. During the night one of these brutes 
escaped from a sty, surrounded by a wall of only 
sun-baked bricks. Not satisfied with the simple 
delights of liberty, it at once attacked one of my 
people, a Tokroori, who was lying asleep upon his 
mat. This unfortunate was scored deeply by the 
tusks in so many places, before the animal could be 
driven off, that he lay helpless for several weeks 
afterwards. 
A few days after this occurrence, I was sitting, 
together with Lady Baker, in the large covered 
