Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon by Sir Samuel White Baker (english novels to read txt) 📕

unkenneled at break of day, and, the tent being pitched at the bottom of the basin, we commenced a pull up the steep patinas, hoping to find somewhere on the edge of the jungles.

"There's scent to a certainty!--look at old Bluebeard's nose upon the ground and the excited wagging of his stern. Ploughboy notices it--now Gaylass they'll hit it off presently to a certainty, though it's as cold as charity. That elk was feeding here early in the night; the scent is four hours old if a minute. There they go into the jungle, and we shall lose the elk, ten to one, as not another hound in the pack will work it up. It can't be helped; if any three hounds will rouse him out, those are the three."

For a couple of hours we had sat behind a rock, sheltered from the wind, watching the immense prospect before us. The whole pack were lying around us except the three missing hounds, of whom we had seen nothing since they stole away upon the cold scent.

That elk must have gone up to the top of the mountains after feeding, and a pretty run he must be having, very likely off to Matturatta plains; if so, good-bye to all sport for to-day, and the best hounds will be dead tired for to-morrow.

I was just beginning to despair when I observed a fine large buck at about half a mile distance, cantering easily toward us across an extensive flat of table-land. This surface was a fine sward, on the same level with the point upon which we sat, but separated from us by two small wooded ravines, with a strip of patina between them. I at once surmised that this was the hunted elk, although, as yet, no hounds were visible.

On arrival at the first ravine we immediately descended, and shortly after he reappeared on the small patina between the two ravines, within three hundred yards of us. Here the strong gale gave him our scent. It was a beautiful sight to see him halt in an instant, snuff the warning breeze and, drawing up to his full height, and wind the enemy before him.

Just at this moment I heard old "Bluebeard's" deep note swelling in the distance, and I saw him leading across the table-land as true as gold upon the track; "Ploughboy" and "Gaylass" were both with him but they were running mute.

The buck heard the hounds as well as we did, and I was afraid that the whole pack would also catch the sound, and by hurrying toward it, would head the elk him from his course. Up to the present time and turn they had not observed him.

Still the buck stood in an attitude of acute suspense. He winded an enemy before him and he heard another behind, which was rapidly closing up, and, as though doubting his own power of scent, he gave preference to that of hearing, and gallantly continued his course and entered the second ravine just beneath our feet.

I immediately jumped up, and, exciting the hounds in a subdued voice, I waved my cap at the spot, and directed a native to run at full speed to the jungle to endeavor to meet the elk, as I knew the hounds would then follow him. This they did; and they all entered the jungle with the man except the three greyhounds, "Lucifer," "Bran" and "Hecate," who remained with me.

A short time passed in breathless suspense, during which the voices of the three following hounds rapidly approached as they steadily persevered in the long chase; when suddenly, as I had expected, the main body of the pack met the elk in the strip of jungle.

Joyful must have been the burst of music to the ears of old "Bluebeard" after his long run. Out crashed the buck upon the patinas near the spot where the pack had entered, and away he went over the grassy hills at a pace which soon left the hounds behind. The greyhounds will stretch his legs for him. Yo-i-ck to him, Lucifer! For-r-r-ard to him, Hecate!

Off dashed the three greyhounds from my side at a railway pace, but, as the buck was above them and had a start of about two hundred yards, in such an uphill race both Bran and Lucifer managed to lose sight of him in the undulations.

Now was the time for Hecate's enormous power of loin and thigh to tell, and, never losing a moment's view of her game, she sped up the steep mountain side and was soon after seen within fifty yards of the brick all alone, but going like a rocket.

Now she has turned him! that pace could not last up hill, and round the elk doubled and came flying down the mountain side.

From the point of the hill upon which we stood we had a splendid view of the course; the bitch gained upon him at every bound, and there was a pitiless dash in her style of going that boded little mercy to her game. What alarmed me, however, was the direction that the buck was taking. An abrupt precipice of about two hundred and fifty feet was lying exactly in his path; this sunk sheer down to a lower series of grass-lands.

At the tremendous pace at which they were going I feared lest their own impetus should carry both elk and dog to destruction before they could see the danger.

Down they flew with unabated speed; they neared the precipice, and a few more seconds would bring them to the verge.

The stride of the buck was no match for the bound of the greyhound: the bitch was at his flanks, and he pressed along at flying speed.

He was close to the danger and it was still unseen: a moment more and "Hecate" sprang at his ear. Fortunately she lost her hold as the ear split. This check saved her. I shouted, "He'll be over!" and the next instant he was flying through the air to headlong destruction.

Bounding from a projecting rock upon which he struck, he flew outward, and with frightfully increasing momentum he spun round and round in his descent, until the centrifugal motion drew out his legs and neck as straight as a line. A few seconds of this multiplying velocity and--crash!

It was all over. The bitch had pulled up on the very brink of the precipice, but it was a narrow escape.

Sportsmen are contradictory creatures. If that buck had come to bay, I should have known no better sport than going in at him with the knife to the assistance of the pack; but I now felt a great amount of compassion for the poor brute who had met so terrible a fate. It did not seem fair; and yet I would not have missed such a sight for anything. Nothing can be conceived more terribly grand than the rush of so large an animal through the air; and it was a curious circumstance that within a few days no less than two bucks had gone over precipices, although I had never witnessed one such an accident more than once before.

Upon reaching the fatal spot, I, of course, found him lying stone dead. He had fallen at least two hundred and fifty feet to the base of the precipice; and the ground being covered with detached fragments of rock, he had broken most of his bones, beside bursting his paunch and smashing in the face. However, we cut him up and cleaned him, and, with the native followers heavily laden, we reached the tent.

The following morning I killed another fine buck after a good run on the patinas, where he was coursed and pulled down by the greyhounds; but the wind was so very high that it destroyed the pleasure of hunting. I therefore determined on another move--to the Matturatta Plains, within three miles of my present hunting ground.

After hunting four days at the Matturatta Plains, I moved on to the Elephant Plains, and from thence returned home after twelve days' absence, having killed twelve elk and two red deer.

The animal known as the "red deer" in Ceylon is a very different creature to his splendid namesake in Scotland; he is particularly unlike a deer in the disproportionate size of his carcase to his length of leg. He stands about twenty-six inches high at the shoulder and weighs (live weight) from forty-five to fifty pounds. He has two sharp tusks in the upper jaw, projecting about an inch and a half from the gum. These are exactly like the lower-jaw tusks of a boar, but they incline in the contrary direction, viz., downward, and they are used as weapons of defence.

The horns of the red deer seldom exceed eight inches in length, and have no more than two points upon each antler, formed by a fork-like termination. This kind of deer has no brow antler. They are very fast, and excel especially in going up hill, in which ground they frequently escape from the best grey-hounds.

There is no doubt that the red-deer venison is the best in Ceylon, but the animal itself is not generally sought after for sport. He gives a most uninteresting run; never going straight away like a deer, but doubling about over fifty acres of ground like a hare, until he is at last run into and killed. They exist in extraordinary numbers throughout every portion of Ceylon, but are never seen in herds.

Next to the red deer is the still more tiny species, the "mouse deer." This animal seldom exceeds twelve inches in height, and has the same characteristic as the red deer in the heavy proportion of body to its small length of limb. The skin is a mottled ash-gray, covered with dark spots. The upper jaw is furnished with sharp tusks similar to the red deer, but the head is free from horns.

The skull is perfectly unlike the head of a deer, and is closely allied to the rat, which it would exactly resemble, were it not for the difference in the teeth. The mouse deer lives principally upon berries and fruits; but I have seldom found much herbage upon examination of the paunch. Some people consider the flesh very good, but my ideas perhaps give it a "ratty" flavor that makes it unpalatable.

These little deer make for some well-known retreat the moment that they are disturbed by dogs, and they are usually found after a short run safely ensconced in a hollow tree.

It is a very singular thing that none of the deer tribe in Ceylon have more than six points on their horns, viz., three upon each. These are, the brow-antler point, and the two points which form the extremity of each horn. I have seen them occasionally with more, but these were deformities in the antlers.

A stranger is always disappointed in a Ceylon elk's antlers; and very naturally, for they are quite out of proportion to the great size of the animal. A very large Scotch red deer in not more than two-thirds the size of a moderately fine elk, and yet he carries a head of horns that are infinitely larger.

In fact, so rare are fine antlers in Ceylon that I could not pick out more than a dozen of really handsome elk horns out of the great numbers that I have killed.

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