In short, with a Paradox, always glance along the sights. You will nearly always find that some “refinement” of aim is required. More words are useless.
One word as to the “forward allowance” needed after the rough alignment (as explained) has been effected. At short snapshot ranges none is required. At a galloping stag at 50 yards, the sights should clear his chest; at 100 yards, half-a-length ahead, and double that for 150 yards. At these longer ranges one instinctively allows for “drop” by taking a fuller sight. For standing shots, of course, the back-sights can be used.
Boar-Hunting by Moonlight (Estremadura)
“Caceria á la Ronda.”
This picturesque and altogether break-neck style of hunting the boar—a style perhaps more consonant than “driving” with popular notions of the dash and chivalry of Spanish character—still survives in the wild province of Estremadura. No species of sport in our experience will compare with the Ronda for danger and sheer recklessness unless it be that of “riding lions” to a stand, as practised on British East African plains.[16]
Years ago we described this system of the Ronda in the “Big-Game” volumes of the Badminton Library, and here write a new account, correcting some slight errors which had crept into the earlier article.
This sport is practised by moonlight at that period of the autumn called the Montanera, when acorns and chestnuts fall from the trees, and when droves of domestic swine are turned loose into the woods to feed on these wild fruits. At that date the wild-boars also are in the habit of descending from the adjacent sierras, and wander far and wide over the wooded plains in search of that favourite food.
When the acorns fall thus and ripe chestnuts strew the ground in these magnificent Estremenian forests, the young bloods of the district assemble to await the arrival of the boars upon the lower ground. Two kinds of dog are employed: the ordinary podencos, which run free; and the alanos, a breed of rough-haired “seizers,” crossed between bull-dog and mastiff—these latter being held in leash.
Sallying forth at midnight, so soon as the podencos give tongue, the alanos are slipped in order to “hold-up” the flying boar till the horsemen can reach the spot.
Then for a while hound-music frightens the darkness and shocks the silence of the sleeping woods; there is crashing among dry forest-scrub, a breakneck scurry of mounted men among the timber, until the furious baying of the hounds and the noisy rush of the hunters converge towards one dark point among the shadows, and in the half-light a great grisly tusker dies beneath the cold steel, but not before he has written a lasting record on the hide of some luckless hound.
A stiff neck and bold heart are essential to these dare-devil gallops, where each horse and horseman vie in reckless rivalry, flying through bush and brake, and under overhung boughs difficult to distinguish amid moon-rays intercepted by foliage above. Accidents of course occur—an odd collar-bone or two hardly count, but what does annoy is when by mistake some wretched beast of domestic race is found held up by the excited pack.