We add the following typical instances of boar-shooting:—
Salavar, February 1, 1900.—A lovely winter’s morn, warm sun and dead calm. The distant cries of the beaters (nigh three miles away) had just reached my ears, when a nearer sound riveted attention—the soft patter of hoofs upon sand. Then from the forest-slope behind appeared a pig—big and grey—trotting through deep rushes some forty yards away. Already the fore-sight was “touching on” its neck, when a lucky suspicion of striped piglings following their mother arrested the ball. Next came along a gentle hind with all her infinite grace of contour and carriage. At twenty-five yards she faced full round, and for long seconds we stared eye to eye. Curious it is that absolute quiescence will puzzle the wildest of the wild! Hardly had she vanished ‘midst forest shades, than once again that muffled patter—this time an unmistakable tusker. But, oh! what an abominable shot I made—too low, too far back—and onwards he pursued his course. By our forest laws it was my deber (bounden duty) to follow the stricken game. All that noontide, all the afternoon—through bush and brake, by dell and dusky defile—patiently, persistently, did Juanillo Espinal and I follow every twist and turn of that unending spoor. There was blood to help us at first, none thereafter. Through the thickets of Sabinal, then back on the left by Maë-Corra, forward through the Carrizal, thence crossing the Corral Grande, and away into the great pinales beyond—away to the Rincon de los Carrizos, three solid leagues and a bit to spare! That was the price of a bungled shot.
Here at last we have tracked him to his lair. Within that sullen fortress of the Rincon lies our wounded boar. How to get him out is a different problem. Though wounded, he is in no way disabled, and is ready, aye “spoiling,” to put up a savage fight for his life. Having precisely located him in a dense tangle of lentisk and briar, our single dog, Careto, a tall, shaggy podenco, not unlike a deerhound, but on smaller scale, is let go. Up a gloomy game-path he vanishes, and in a moment fierce music startles the silent woods. The boar refused to move. But one resource remained. We must go in to help Careto, crawling up a briar-laced tunnel. It was horribly dark at first, and I began to think of ... when, fortunately, the light improved, and a few yards farther in a savage scene was enacting in quite a considerable open. Beneath its brambled roof we could stand half upright. In its farthest corner stood our boar at bay, a picture of sullen ferocity. Upon Juanillo’s appearance the scene changed as by magic—there was a rush and resounding crash. Precisely what happened during the three succeeding seconds deponent could not see, it being so gloomy, and Juanillo on my front. Ere a cartridge could be shoved into the breech the great boar was held up, Careto hanging on to his right ear, and Juanillo, springing over the dog, had seized the grisly beast by both hind-legs—at the hocks—and stepping backward, with one mighty heave flung the boar sidelong on the earth. Next moment I had driven the knife through his heart.
Though the method described is regularly employed by Spanish hunters to seize and capture a wounded or “bayed” boar—and we have seen it executed dozens of times—yet seldom in such a spot as this, cramped in space, handicapped by bad light and intercepting boughs and briars. It was a dramatic scene, and a bold act that bespoke cool head and brawny biceps.
The head of this boar hangs on our walls to commemorate an event we are not likely to forget.
We remember following a wounded lynx into a similar spot—a deep hollowed jungle. A pandemonium of savage snarling and spitting, barks and yowls greeted our ears as we crawled in, while on reaching the cavern the green eyes of the lynx flashed like electric lights from a dark recess. Though one hind-leg had been broken and the other damaged by a rifle-ball, yet she held easy mastery over five or six dogs. Sitting bolt upright, she kept the lot at bay with sweeping half-arm blows. Not a dog dared close, and the brave feline had to be finished with the lance.
Mancha del Milagro, February 4, 1908.—The covert, we knew by spoor, held a first-rate boar, and his most probable salida (break-out) was at the foot of a perpendicular sand-wall, within fifty yards of which the writer held guard. Within brief minutes the music of the pack corroborated what had been foretold by spoor. Twice the boar with crashing course encircled the mancha within, passing close inside my post. Each moment I watched for his appearance at the expected point on the right. Then, without notice or sound of broken bough, suddenly he stood outside on the left—almost beneath the gun’s muzzle—not eight feet away. Luckily (as he stood within my firing-lines) the boar steadfastly gazed in the opposite direction, nor did I seek by slightest movement to attract attention to my presence. For some seconds we both remained thus, rigid. Then with sudden decision the boar bounded off, flying the gentle slope in front, and ere he had passed a yard clear of the firing-line, fell dead with a bullet placed in the precise spot.
Weight, 164 lbs. clean, and grey as a donkey.
A wounded boar should always be approached with caution. Remember he is a powerful brute, very resolute, and furnished with quite formidable armament, which, while life remains, he will use. One of the biggest, after receiving a bullet slightly below and behind the heart, went slowly on some fifty yards, when he subsided, back up, among some green iris. Half an hour later the writer silently approached from directly behind. At ten yards the heaving flanks showed that plenty of life remained, and beautiful scimitar-like tushes were conspicuous enough on either side. I therefore quietly withdrew. On a keeper presently riding up, the boar at once dashed on a dog, flung him aside (laying open half his ribs), and charged the horse. The latter was smartly handled and cleared, when the boar instantly turned on me. The dash of that onset was splendid to watch. Luckily he had a yard or two of soft bog to get through, but it was necessary to stop him with another bullet.
Impressive is the mental sensation aroused when any savage wild-beast—normally the object of pursuit—suddenly turns the tables and becomes the aggressor. The actual incident is necessarily but momentary, yet its effect remains graven on the tablets of memory. Pity ‘tis so rare.