Sketches From My Life / By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha

by Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden

I have seen on arriving at a Turkish village every one vie with the other, and doing their very utmost to make the sportsman and his party comfortable. I have seen 'harems,' such as they are, cleaned out and prepared as a sleeping apartment, all the inmates huddling together in some little corner. I have remarked one old woman arrive with a couple of eggs, another with what was perhaps her pet fowl, to be sacrificed at the altar of hospitality—in fact, only one idea seemed to animate them, namely, hospitality, and it is touching to see how they shrink from the proffered reward made by the sportsman on leaving these kind though poor and long-suffering people.

There are different kinds of deer to be found in Asia Minor, which strangely enough imitate the habits of the inhabitants, Greek, Turk, and Armenian, by not herding together.

First, there is the large red deer which generally inhabit the high mountains and are difficult to get, except when the winter snow drives them down into the lower grounds. I have been fortunate enough to kill several of these splendid animals during my sojourn in Turkey. I will give my readers an account of how I shot two of them. One day during the winter, when the mountains were covered with snow, I received news that three deer of the largest description were in a ravine at the foot of a mountain some six hours' distance from Ismidt. I immediately started off in pursuit. I must mention that all persons of high rank in Turkey have, or had at the time I write of, by their shooting firman, the right to call upon the villagers in the neighbourhood in which they are shooting to assist in driving or searching for game. In my case it was not necessary to take advantage of such an offer; every one was on the alert for my arrival. The people told me that that very morning they had seen the noble beasts I was after, grazing outside the wood. So, gathering the villagers, boys carrying horns, men (much against my will) carrying guns, accompanied by every available dog, from the grand shepherd's dog to the yapping cur of the village, off we started.

The ravine was thickly wooded, and extended far up the mountain, where it ended in a bare spot without trees. To this place I went alone, leaving the crowd behind me with directions not to move till I was in my place, which instruction they most strictly followed. After half an hour's walk I arrived at the place I have named. I had hardly time to regain my breath when I heard a row below me as if Bedlam had been let loose. I loaded my gun with buckshot in one barrel and ball in the other, and remained as quiet as a mouse. As the noise of the beaters and dogs approached me, I heard a crash in the bushes within about forty yards of me, and presently a magnificent stag as big as a cow came slowly out of the cover, looking behind him, evidently not expecting an enemy in front. As soon as he was well clear of the bushes, I fired at him with buckshot and killed him dead. I hardly had time to think, when, with a tremendous rush, two other large deer broke out of the wood straight at me at full gallop. I fired a bullet at the foremost one, which turned back into the woods apparently wounded, and so it proved, for it ran among the beaters, evidently having lost its head, and was soon despatched among dogs, men and guns. He was a stag also, and as I claimed to have shot him, I may say that I had the luck to shoot a brace of splendid stags right and left. There is not a sportsman in Europe who would not have been delighted at such a chance of red deer like these; such as are not seen anywhere except in Asia Minor. The largest one had nineteen points to his antlers, weighed when cleaned a hundred and fifteen okes, equal to three hundred and twenty pounds English measure, and certainly was the largest stag I have ever met with, either in Scotland or in Austria. During the sixteen years that I have passed in the East I have only succeeded in killing four of these splendid animals. This I attribute very much to the want of proper deerhounds, which unfortunately I have not been able to procure.

The crowd of beaters make so much noise that the deer slip away at the sides of the thick covers unseen, whereas dogs would drive them more in a straight line towards the shooters if they are properly posted. In addition to this, it is always a great advantage when the hounds give tongue, and so warn the sportsman of the whereabouts of the game. These hounds, called 'colpoys,' can be procured in Roumania and Hungary. There is another description of deer found near the sea-coast in some parts of Asia Minor, which I will describe. It is in fact the pure wild fallow deer that stocks the parks of Europe, and if I am rightly informed is only to be found wild in Asia Minor, and even there it is rare.

I understand that in India or in Africa, where there are hundreds of different sorts of deer, the real fallow is not to be found. While shooting at a place called Camaris, near to Gallipoli, two years since, I discovered several herds of these deer, beautiful creatures, wild as hawks, and accordingly laid myself out to shoot some of them if possible. I tried driving, stalking, and every manœuvre to circumvent them, without success. At last one day I started with my beaters to a place where there were many tracks of fallow deer. I was posted at a sort of small mountain pen, having on one side of me a young friend of mine, and at the other a native (these fellows won't go out unless they are allowed to carry their guns).

Shortly after the beaters had begun to halloo, a fallow hind glided by between me and my young friend, like a ghost. Not a sound in the wood gave notice of its approach. It was even quieter in its movements than a hare would have been. I put up my gun to fire, but seeing my friend's head right in the way and in a line with its muzzle, I waited a second, but the deer was gone. I had scarcely got over my disappointment when I heard the branches breaking in the wood very near to me, and suddenly a deer sprang right over my head, taking a flying leap, like a hunter would do over a fence.

This unusual action on the part of the deer called for unusual action on my part. As he had taken a flying leap over my head, I took a flying shot at him a second before he landed on the other side of me. The result was that he rolled over like a rabbit, shot from underneath through the heart. This deer proved to be a very fine specimen of the fallow, every point showing him to be of that species, except his antlers, which were quite straight. This I cannot account for; the natives, who had remarked this deer on several occasions feeding with the herd of fallow deer, called it the 'Cassic Boa,' which means 'straight-horned.' Some time after this I had some good sport with the fallow deer. Having got more accustomed to their habits, I found that it was of no use trying to approach them, their scent being too keen, their eyesight too sharp; the only way to get them is by very careful, in fact I may say scientific, driving.

Good boar shooting may be had by going some little distance from Constantinople. It usually is done either by beaters or with boarhounds; but I have had very good sport at boar while hunting for woodcocks and pheasants, in what may be called covert shooting—not exactly English covert shooting, in which almost every tree is known by the keepers, but in coverts of great extent, in which there are almost impassable thickets, made still more impassable by a well-known bramble called the 'wait a bit,' a thing that hooks on to your eyelids as you pass.

There it is that in these coverts spaniels, half-English, half country-bred dogs, do frequently the work of beaters, and it is a strange fact that while piggy starts at once from his lair at the approach of the boarhounds, he will not budge an inch for the little yapping spaniel, whom he treats with contempt.