’ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
, | 55 

Che Hagazines. 
THE 12TH OF AUGUST IN ENGLAND. 
. —_—_+—— 
ARK ! there is the sound of the first shot of the 
season, and we see in the distance the smoke 
wreathe up above the heads of one of the other parties that 
had already reached their ground. Other reports followed 
in quick succession, and as we pushed on to Penyghent, 
our dogs fetching long circles through the heath before us, 
we heard both squads blazing away vigorously. We had 
but just reached the foot of the mountain where our keepers 
promised that we should find game, when my dog Jack, a 
superb white and liver-colored pointer, with a skin soft and 
smooth as velvet, and showing the delicate tracing of each 
cord and vein, made adead point. He was distant perhaps 
fifty yards when he made his sudden halt, and there he 
stood, motionless as a statue, his neck slightly curved, his 
nostrils inhaling with tremulous delight the tainted breeze, 
his tail stretched out stiffly towards us, and the off fore-paw 
slightly suspendedinthe air. Springing over the intervenin 
space as rapidly as the rough nature of the ground faded 
with knolls of heath and pools of water, into one of which 
I stumbled over my knees) would permit, I soon found 
myself by Jack’s side. Still he stood motionless. I urged 
him onward with a slight push of the knee. He crouched 
steadily forward a few paces and again checked. I repeated 
the admonition, and hg once more moved forward, more 
rapidly, but noiselessly as ever, his belly almost touching 
the ground, and his whole body quivering with excitement. 
The game is almost under the muzzle of my gun, but still I 
can see nothing, when suddenly up springs an old bird, a pa- 
triarch of the moors, and with a whir-r, whir-r, darted down 
the wind. I know that six critical eyes are upon me—yes, 
ten, for even the two dogs, with an almost human instinct, 
are alternately looking at me and the flying bird—and I feel 
that I must not miss him. As much excited as when years 
ago I made my first cavalry charge, I am still able to appear 
outwardly cool. My gun is at my shoulder, the bird has 
placed a distance of forty yards between us, and, as old 
Leatherstocking said, ‘‘ he has a chance for his life;” my at- 
tendant excitedly cries, ‘‘ Fire, Sir, fire,’ when I at length 
feel that the moment has arrived, a trigger is pulled, and 
he falls heavily to the ground—a dead bird. With a most 
hypocritical pretense of indifference I order Jack to ‘‘ down 
charge,” and proceed to reload with the greatest delibera- 
tion. This done, Jack hears the words ‘‘seek dead;” the 
old bird of resplendent plumage, which the length of the 
shot had saved even from being ruffled, is soon found and 
put in my gamekeeper’s bag, and with a ‘‘hi on” to the 
dogs, the party, which had halted, moves onward, meeting 
with an abundance ofjbirds and good luck.—Harpers’ 
Monthly. 

66 
+ __—— 
POLO AT HOME. 
. ——_4——. 
N Henderson’s Expedition to Yarkand in 1870, the follow 
ing description of a polo play ina Thibetan town can 
be found In front of the rest house at Paskyum is a fine 
polo ground, shaded on the south side by a row of very tall 
poplars; and here we saw played the national game of polo 
already mentioned. The polo ground is quite level, about 
300 yards long and fifty broad. The number of players was 
usually about fifty, all of them mounted on the hardy little 
ponies of the country, and each man armed with a very 
curious looking club, about three feet long. Two leaders 
are selected, who alternately choose men for their respec- 
tive sides; or men from one district play against another 
district. In the excitement of the game it is of course neces- 
sary to be able at once to distinguish to which side each 
man belongs, and this is managed by each side wearing a 
headdress of a particular color; thus, one side had red tur- 
bans, the other side white ones. The musicians, who seem 
to be quite indispensable whilst polo is being played, took 
up their position cross-legged near the centre of the ground, 
and alittle to one side; and we, the spectators, sat in a ver- 
andah in the upper story of the rest house. The musical 
instruments consisted of half adozen small drums and 
as many rude clarionets, which produced a lively but very 
monotonous air, not unlike a ‘‘ pibroch;” and as soon as 
everything was ready and the music began, the leader of 
~ the side which had the ball rode along at a gallop, followed 
by all the others, and when he arrived near the centre of 
the ground he threw up the ball and very cleverly struck it 
with his club, sometimes succeeding at the first stroke in 
driving it to the goal. Usually the ball was intercepted, 
and a very animated scene then ensued, each side trying to 
urge the ball towards their own end of the ground, and the 
side which first succeeded in driving it beyond the bound- 
ary mark at their end of the ground .won the game. Each 
«game lasted only for a few minutes, but the fun was kept 
up for several hours, and sometimes there was intense ex- 
citement, and very ee skill in horsemanship displayed. 
At last both men and horses seemed to be quite exhausted, 
and we then had a series of entertainments requiring less 
active exertion. 
oo 
THE ASHANTEES. 
——_—. 
- Teas capital of the Ashantees is Buntookoo, a semi- 
N 
Moslem city, which has never been reached by any 
European. The king is a ccnstitutional monarch, but with 
much absolute power. On his accession he is warned by his 
principal nobles that if he does not adhere to certain funda- 
mental laws he will be dethroned; but on the other hand he 
can tyrannize over individual persons. He and his people are 
pagan, though there is a Moslem quarter in the capital, the 
Mohammedans being traders from the countries watered by 
the Niger. The King is allowed to have 3,833 wives, but not 
to exceed that number. Some of these ladies are merely slaves 
who work in the royal plantations and furnish the Court 
with cassada and plantains; others reside in rooms luxu- 
riously furnished, guarded by eunuchs enjoying the delights 
of tobacco and palm wine in true Oriental style. Intrigue 
with a royal wife is punishable by death; the executioners 
torture the offender from sunrise to sunset, leading him 
about the town and performing fantasias upon. his body 
with knives before the houses of the noted chieftains or 
strangers of distinction. Finally, they lead him to the pres- 
ence of the King and literally cut him to pieces before the 
throne. This horrible method of execution is only employ- 
ed for the above-mentioned offence and for the crime of 
murder. It is a curious custom in Ashantee that if the 
condemned man cries out a certain word or phrase he can- 
not be killed, it gives him the right of sanctuary; the ex- 
cutioners, therefore, steal upon their victims from behind, 
and commence proceedings by passing a dagger through 
both cheeks, whereby the man is effectively gagged. When 
the King dies, a number of lords-in-waiting kill themselves 
to serve as his escort to Shadow Land. These persons are 
called okras, or ‘souls,’ and wear a peculiar gold badge 
which indicates their office. At that time also a saturnalia 
of blood is celebrated; hundreds of victims are sacrificed, and 
the young men of the royal house run about shooting whom 
they please—even the highest personages in the land. Thus 
the death of the King is a national misfortune, and that, 
perhaps, gives the clue to the origin of these extraordinary 
customs. Death for them is only a migration, and they de- 
part from life with equanimity. A woman slave, who was 
one of those condemned to die, was stripped according to 
custom, and knocked on the head. Being only stunned by 
the blow she recovered ler senses, and saw herself sur- 
rounded by dead bodies. She ran into the town, found the 
nobles sitting in council, told them she had been to the land 
of the dead, and that she had been sent back because she 
had no clothes. They must dress her finely and kill her 
over again, which accordingly was done. 
in a small kingdom adjoining Ashantee, the laws and cus- 
toms of which are the same. 
Finally as to war. The Ashantee army is the nation. 
When the order for the march is given, all able-bodied men 
join their respective companies and leave. the town, carry- 
ing with them a kind of meal as food. The women then 
parade the streets, and if they detect a man skulking behind, 
beat him unmercifully. In battle the Generals occupy 
the rear, and cut down all who retreat. If the battle is lost 
they kill themselves. One suicide of this kind I witnessed 
on the Volta. A battle took place between our allies and 
some allies of the Ashantees. The latter were defeated, 
and the Ashantee chief who was present, threw the insignia 
of his rank into the river, and then sitting on a powder- 
barrel, blew himself into the air.—Compiled from the Pall 
Mall Gazette. 
0 
HUMBOLDYT’S FIRST LITERARY VEN- 
TURE. 
eee 
HE cost of bringing out this colossal reswme of Amer- 
ican observations (his travels in the equinoxial regions 
of the New World, undertaken from 1799 to 1804) involved 
Humboldt in pecuniary embarrassments, from which he 
can scarcely be said ever to have freed himself, and which 
had moreover the disastrous results of forcing him to ac- 
cept help at a subsequent period from the King of Prussia, 
and thus incur an obligation which he found could only be 
redeemed by devoting himself to the perpetual restraints of 
a court life. 
To fully understand the sacrifices to expediency and to 
the obligations of gratitude made by Humboldt in accept- 
ing the position of what may best be termed an honorary 
attache to his own Court and Sovereign, one requires to 
read with attention the pictures drawn in these volumes ot 
society in the Prussivn capital during the earlier half of this 
century. But it would scarcely, perhaps, be possible in the 
present changed position of Prussia to realize the deadness 
and stagnation that then hovered over every phase of social 
life. umboldt, who from the year 1809, when he accom- 
panied the Prince of Prussia to Paris in the capacity of 
friendly and official adviser, had repeatedly been entrusted 
with diplomatic and other honorable missions by the Bov- 
ereign, entertained a warm regard for the different members 
of the Royal family, while his relations to the late King Fred- 
erick William IV, were those of a long-tried, affectionate 
friendship. These feelings undoubtedly softened the hard- 
ships of the courtly bondage ingvhich he spent his last thirty 
years, but though they might have gilded the bitter pill, 
they scarcely made it palatable; and Humboldt’s volumi- 
nous correspondence at Berlin bears ample testimony to the 
struggle which was going on within himself to keepin check 
his contempt for Courts, his natural proclivity to sarcasm, 
and his impatience of routine constraints.”’—Namre. 
——$—————_—_—=<4 6 ————____——_ 
A WreckIne TRAGEDY.—Some people are in the habit 
of talking about Cornwall as a land of wreckers—and a 
wrecker, one who robs or murders a fellow-creature for the 
sake of plunder, to prevent his escaping the jaws of a 
watery grave, is a disgrace to our common nature, and the 
personification of a brute. The most odious instance 
of such a wretch, if the story is authentic, is one I 
have read in connection with the fate of the gallant but 
unfortunate Sir Cloudlesly Shovel. It i8 said that he reach- 
ed the shore, after his ship went to pieces, breathing and 
alive, and was carried to the hutof anold woman, who, 
many years afterwards, sent for the clergyman of her 
parish, and said she wished, before she died, to confess to 
him a dreadful crime which burdened her conscience. She 
then told him that the Admiral had survived the wreck, 
and had reached her hut in a very exhausted state; that he 
lay down on her bed to rest, but that, tempted by the value 
of the things he had about him, she murdered him. In 
confirmation of the truth of this assertion, she delivered up 
aring which she had taken from his finger, and which 
when shown to his friends, was well remembered to have 
been his. The story is too horrible to be readily admitted, 
had it happened to any one; but, related as it is of a great 
naval hero, and of one in whom our sympathies are so en- 
listed, one longs to discredit it, if one may.— Blackwood. 
————_—__ <> o—___———_ 
CANNIBALISM IN Curna.—This is too horrible if true: A 
German traveller, and a reliable one, asserts that in Pekin, 
in the most wretched portion of the city, there is a fearful 
street devoted to public executions. Here the taking of 
human life has been carried on so long that it does not even 
attract the attention of passers-by. With asingle blow, heads 
are cut off. But now comes the terrible episode. After the 
excutioner comes the butcher. The heads must be pre- 
Served to be accounted for, but the bodies go to the shambles. 
The poor, the leprous, the blind take the cut up bodies, salt 
and eat them. 

all> 6 ——__— 
—The Arab peasant with his sinewy limbs, whose dress 
consists of a shirt and cloak, who can endure the greatest 
fatigue in the burning sun, cannot travel more than twenty- 
four miles in the twelve hours. Europeans attempting to 
walk too far and at too great a height of speed, frequently 
suecumb from sun-stroke, 
This happened’ 

Auiswers Yo Correspondents. 
——~—— 
[We shall endeavor in this department to impart and hope to_receiwe 
such information as bed be of to amateur and professional sports- 
men. We will cheerfully answer all reasonable questions that fall within 
the scope of this paper, designating localities for good hunting, fish- 
ing, and trapping, and giving advice and instructions as to outfits, im- 
plements, routes, distances, seasons, expenses, remedies, traits, spectes, 
governing rites, etc. All branches of the sportsman’s craft will receive 
attention. Anonymous communications not noticed.| : 
GREGORY, Quebec.—Process for preserving skins of quadrupeds, men- 
tioned in our second nnmber, will not do for bird skins. Best dressing 
we know of is the old fashioned arsenical soap, Never use alum, it tends 
to make the skinand feathers brittle. For small specimens, and young 
birds in down, putting their skins in spirits does quite well. 
Don.—We have again to repeat what we said in our second number. 
It will be our invariable rule never to advocate any particular gun. In 
the field we use no less than three guns, one of which is a muzzle-loader. 
Should we be shooting at Creedmoor we would use one make of gun. 
Bnt our private opinion of the merits of any one gun is our own and not 
for the public. Should a gun be dangerous it would be our duty to an- 
nounce it as such. We therefore beg numerous correspondents on this 
subject not to consider it as uncourteous if for the future we ignore all 
such questions. 
J. C. B.—Your paper on the anchovy will appear in our nextissue. 
T. H. B.—First question a wide one. Best place for all general game, 
large and small, isin Michigan, through Oakland, Lapeer and Tuscola 
counties. Railroad from Detroit to Bay City. In our No, 2 find reply to 
one part of your question as far as the preservation of skins for stuffing. 
To tan skins is a long process. They can be rough dried by hanging them 
in the shade, not in the sun, scraping off superfluous fat, and stretching. 
Indian tanning is done by smoking, and rubbing with the brains of ani- 
mals, and by sheer elbow grease. Can recommend no books, save pon- 
derous treatises on the whole art. See Newhouse’s Trappers’ Guide. 
T. 8. T., Hartford.—A split bamboo rod should be kept in a dry, uni- 
form temperature. Take it apart and let the joints lie or stand, so that 
no strain will come upon any part. 
GroveR.—It would be throwing good money after bad. If our courts 
are loose about horse guarantees, they entirely ignore the dog question. 
You have been ingeniously swindled in your pointer. The price you paid 
for him should have insured you a prime dog, not only as to blood but as 
to training. 
Fancy.—There was last year a charming specimen of the genus pug- 
dog at the Central Park. Do not think any dog merchant in New York 
could sell you one; you would be humbugged certainly. 
Satyapor, Richmond, Va.—There is nothing more difficult than to de- 
stroy worms in dogs. You can find hundreds of receipts in books, which 
are useless. Pounded glass is astupid remedy. We have used turpen- 
tine mixed with castor oil, about two drachms of turpentine to a table 
spoon full andahalf of oil. This dose would keep the dog ffee of his 
plagues for a week or so, but the worms would come back. Pinkroot, we 
are afraid of; many good dogs have been killed with it, dog and worms 
all together. 
Youne AMATEUR.—Proof spirit, diluted one half with water, will do 
for preserving reptiles. 
8. L. H.—Any number of cartridges can be fired in arifle barrel without 
bursting it. Very probably not more than three will go off, and the fire 
will not be communicated to all of them. The force will be expended 
through the vent. 
Cuar.zEs H., Rochester.—Every symptom you write us about seems to 
show that your dog had the rabies. We are a little bit afraid of Newfound- 
lands. Sometimes too much of the old Esquimanux strain comes in, and 
they are snappish. 
MastTerton.—In Canada a fishing privilege may cost from $50 to $200 
for the season. In Scotland we have paid £9 a month. 
Fipgs.—In reply to your query respecting the “river salmon”? of the 
Wichita and other tributaries of the Mississippi, we reply briefly. Sal- 
mon are apparently confined to the rivers which enter directly into the 
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. All the tributaries of jthe St. Lawrence are 
filled with them. The same is true of rivers entering into the north Pa- 
cific ocean; the Columbia, for instance. The subject of salmon in the 
tributaries of the Mississippi, if they exist, has attracted no attention. 
The Indians living on these tributuries are not fish eaters, and sportsmen 
and naturalists have so far found apparently too little inducement to give 
attention to the subject. We shall give especial attention to the natural 
history of southern fish in the coming months. 
Henry G. ©., Columbus, Ohio.—For curing distemper, the first and 
most important thing is tohave and to keep the dog and his litter per- 
fectly clean. Use carbolic soap for the dog, washing him every other day, 
and whitewash his kennel. A safe dose for him isa tablespoon full of 
castor oil, repeated at intervals of a day, but not more than twice; should 
he recover after the first dose, stop it. If he does not improve, you may 
give him a pill, only one, made up of two grains of calomel, compound 
powder of antimony, three grains, and of camphor half adrachm. As 
dogs weaken rapidly under almost all diseases, we are for small doses. 
Keep up the dog’s strength with beef broth, but do not use oat-meal. 
Many good dogs, unable to swallow, die from exhaustion, when a little 
good soup would save them. Keep the dogina cool dry place, and let it 
be ventilated. A shepherd dog is too valuable to lose, and every effort 
should be made to save him. 
WHISTLE-WIND.—Thanks for your communication. 
we have utilized the information in our proper column. 
Oxp Sport.—No, sir, we do not regard moose, caribou, wild turkeys, or 
quail as strictly in season until October, or at least until the 15th of Sep- 
tember; and in several States the close season is so designated on the Stat- 
ute books. We shall attend to these matters in due time. 
BEGINNER.—Small grain is the best; the size you mention is excellent. 
G. F. H. anp A. B. S., Boston, Mass.—The gun we have but casually 
examined. It is a useful arm for a beginner, but it is a bad habit to com- 
mence to shoot with a single-barreled gun. The price is very moderate. 
Tt is past date, but 


OPENING OF THE OysTER TRADE.—The business has al- 
ready commenced in Baltimore, and some fifty boats 
started after the natives on Monday last. The first comers 
to Baltimore market are generally the Mills river, Poplar 
Point, Sommer’s Point, and Thomas and Hackets oysters. 
They are at first poor in flavor, but improve rapidly du- 
ring the month. All these oysters are rather fresh, but 
strange to say keep better than salt ones. Boats at the be- 
ginning of the season bring small loads, not exceeding 
200 bushels, as the oysters are used for immediate eating 
and not for packing. Oystermen predict a full supply, as 
the bedding has been very extensive. 
————_—_———= > —___ 
Tue STANLEY QuEsTION.—The Stanley question *‘ as to 
whether he found Livingston:” seems likely to be revived. 
The potentate of Uganda states that three white men had 
come to Ujiji, and that they had gone back to Zanzibar, but 
that no one had heard of their having met Livingston. Our 
latest African advices inform us that the Uganda King is 
very positive on this subject, and we may expect shortly a 
statement under his hand%and seal to this effect, published 
in some leading New York journal. 
