710 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 6, 1913. 
to the left of the picture. The second photo 
shows a black-buck or Indian antelope. 
Finer black-buck heads are obtainable in 
Northern India than in Mysore, but they pro¬ 
vide no better sport in the getting. The bullock 
ibundi, or native cart, which must be used as 
soon as one has to leave the road for the shoot¬ 
ing grounds, is also shown in the picture. An 
(Uncomfortable mode of progression, albeit the 
only one save “Shank’s pony,” but a good layer 
of straw will mitigate a great deal of the dis¬ 
comfort due to the absence of springs. Ante¬ 
lope are more or less accustomed to the sight 
of these carts and their accompanying pair of 
bullocks, and they therefore constitute a useful 
means of stalking your animals, so that it is 
<even possible sometimes to get up to within 
150 yards while sitting in the cart, but not on 
ground which has recently been shot over. 
It is astonishing what vitality these little 
animals display after being hit. On one oc¬ 
casion I hit a buck with a well-placed shot at 
a range of about 150 yards, so that after passing 
through the shoulder the bullet smashed its 
diaphragm and heart “all to smithereens.” 
Nevertheless, that buck went like the wind for 
nearly 100 yards before dropping dead. On 
another occasion I hit a fast-moving animal at 
long range, smashing a hind leg. It made off 
at a tremendous pace on its remaining three 
legs, while I raced so as to cut it off. Eventu¬ 
ally, topping a hill, I hit it again at very long 
range, and after a chase of three miles we 
picked it up dead, to find that my second shot 
had cut its underside open and disemboweled it. 
The photographs show me wearing the kit 
which I recommend as far and away the most 
comfortable and serviceable. The shirt and 
coat are of the khaki-colored puggaree, or turban 
cloth, which is delightfully thin and cool. The 
short pants are of regulation khaki-drill and 
the sun-topi is the regulation “pig-sticker” of 
pith covered with khaki cloth. The knees 
should be left bare for comfort, and a pair of 
woolen “puttees” and brown canvas shoes with 
rope soles complete the outfit, all of which a 
bazaar native tailor, whom one’s bearer will 
bring along, will turn out very cheaply. 
Mysore abounds with wild boar, and it is 
possible to geat great sport out of a “pig-drive.” 
The villagers are only too delighted to lend 
their aid for a “mere song” in the way of 
remuneration, not only because the pigs are a 
nuisance to their crops, but also because they 
are very fond of the meat. They will hunt them 
themselves with quaint old spears that have 
been handed down from generation to genera¬ 
tion. Having decided upon the piece of country 
to be beaten, your shikarris will pass the word 
to neighboring villages and several hundred 
men will turn out to drive. These swarthy sons 
of the soil, clad in “nothing much before and 
something less than half of that behind,” as 
Kipling has it, and accompanied by their hunt¬ 
ing dogs, will beat up the country for miles 
around and drive toward the spot where the 
guns are stationed, netting some places at times 
to prevent the pig from breaking in the wrong 
•direction. There is “the devil to pay” some¬ 
times when a big “tusker” decides to charge a 
net and gets entangled in it, and has to be 
despatched by spear-thrusts to the accompani¬ 
ment of ear-piercing squeals. The guns are 
always stationed at the edge of the jungle where 
the ground is clearer and the pig will put off 
breaking till the last minute, when the beaters 
are close upon them. Then out they will come, 
going fast in a peculiar lolloping gallop, and 
one has little time to “draw a bead” and shoot. 
An additional element of excitement is provided 
by the fact that there is always a possibility of 
putting up a panther when driving pig. 
The banks of rivers and “tanks” nearby 
Mysore produce crocodile for the stalking, and 
sometimes a hyena or a' wolf comes close 
enough in to make getting him comparatively 
easy. 
I have said enough, I imagine, to indicate 
the lines upon which one with none too much 
time upon his hands should go to work to pro¬ 
cure sport which is always more or less ready 
to hand. There is always food enough for the 
shotgun, of course, in the shape of peacock, 
duck, partridge, quail, sand-grouse, pigeon, 
jungle-fowl, according to season. 
If time be no object and one wants a tiger, 
the only plan is to get into communication with 
the local experts I have indicated and see what 
they have to say and can put up at the moment. 
The picture shows a couple of tiger break¬ 
ing into the open when beaten and with guns 
stationed on a line of elephants, and is a photo¬ 
graph of an incident during King George V.’s 
hunt in Nepaul at the time of the Delhi Durbar. 
One of these beasts actually sprang on an ele¬ 
phant after being wounded, seizing it by the 
trunk, and was crushed to death under the ele¬ 
phant’s fore foot. 
This method of hunting tiger is seldom 
employed, as the authorities will only take the 
necessary trouble for some one of special im¬ 
portance and the cost is far beyond the average 
person’s means, besides requiring considerable 
time for preparation. The method most com¬ 
mon is to tie up a “kill” in the likeliest spot 
after your beast has been “pugged-down,” 
ensconce yourself snugly in a machan up a 
tree and shoot him when, he comes for his meal. 
Or, the “kill” may not be necessary if you can 
catch “stripes” at his usual drinking place. 
A man I knew, the son of an army man who 
joined his father in India at the age of sixteen, 
used to relate in his own inimitable Irish fashion 
how he shot his first tiger. He has since shot 
his dozens. It appears that he and his shik- 
arri were on their way through the jungle to 
some particular spot, when they unexpectedly 
caught sight of “stripes” about thirty yards 
below them down the slope of the ravine. The 
shikarri immediately pulled my friend down 
on to the ground against a tree trunk and 
motioned to him to shoot. He was but sixteen 
and had never seen a tiger in his life outside 
of a menagerie, and he was so disconcerted that 
he could only sit and gape in open-mouthed as¬ 
tonishment, while “stripes,” sitting on his 
haunches, stared back at him, quite motionless, 
except for an occasional flick of the end of his 
tail. He declared that it would only have been 
necessary for the beast to roar for him to have 
flung down his rifle and fled incontinently! As 
it was, it must have been some minutes, my 
friend said, before it seemed to enter his brain 
as quite an after-thought, as it were, that he 
had a rifle in his hand and had better shoot. 
He put the rifle to his shoulder and fired (he 
felt afterward as if his eyes must have been 
closed when he pulled the trigger), and no one 
was more surprised than himself to see the tiger 
roll over dead. 
This reminds me that I was once out for 
panther with a man who was consumed with 
pluck. After he had imbibed copiously of 
“Dutch courage” in the form of good Scotch 
whisky, we seated ourselves in our “wooly.” 
We had got up the shoot for him, so it was his 
first shot. When the panther made its appear¬ 
ance it was all I could do to induce him to 
shoot, and alas! when he did so, the dog we 
had tied up rolled over dead, killed by what 
would have been, in the panther, a most excel¬ 
lently placed shot! Cold tea is by far the best 
beverage when out hunting. 
Only a few words on the subject of guns, 
as everyone has his own ideas and favorites. 
The following comprise what I should take with 
me were I off to India on a shooting trip to¬ 
morrow: A .280 Ross; .405 Winchester or .350 
Browning, or both; .500 D. B. express; 16-bore 
shotgun. Also a miniature .220 Winchester 
comes in handy for knocking over a few pigeons 
for the camp “pot,” as the report from this little 
gun is not sufficient to scare other game if one is 
close to the shooting ground. And a 9 mm. 
Browning pistol is better than all the hunting 
knives ever invented as a standby in case of hap¬ 
pening on a “tight corner.” 
NOTES OF A CASUAL OBSERVER. 
Probably one of the oldest toys in existence 
is the firecracker. Gunpowder originated in 
China, so long ago that no trustworthy history 
records the -fact. It was discovered by acci¬ 
dent, by finding that nitre, in which the soil 
of China abounds, exploded when mixed with 
hot charcoal dust, as in some wood fire. We 
know that saltpeter was first known as 
“Chinese snow,” and that gunpowder was 
first used in China. The Arabs, who traded 
with the Chinese by sea many centuries ago 
brought the knowledge of it to Arabia, whence 
it spread westward, and was at first employed 
in making fireworks. Then some inventive 
genius applied its force to gunnery, and it 
was used by the Saracens in the early wars in 
the East, and later by the Moors in their 
conquest of Spain, and invasion of France. 
Nevertheless, so slow were men in those days 
to profit by the new ideas, it was not until the 
thirteenth century that it really began to serve 
a purpose in war, cannon being used first at 
the battle of Crecy (1346). Thomas Carlyle 
is credited with the remark that the three 
agents which have most advanced civilization 
are gunpowder, the Bible and Presbyterianism. 
China had had gunpowder for many centuries 
before any advance among her people became 
perceptible. Perhaps even in Europe, its in¬ 
fluence was less than that of Carlyle’s second 
agency, the Bible, and in Carlyle’s country, at 
least, Presbyterianism seems to have advanced 
by the aid of both. Binocular. 
A thoroughly up-to-date sawmill with a capa¬ 
city of 60,000 board feet a day has been erected 
on the south coast of Mindanao Island. It is of 
American make throughout, and uses the modern 
bandsaw. This is only one of several such mills 
in the Philippines. 
