We found that the poor beast had a hind fetlock cut nearly through by a bullet. The wound must have been inflicted some considerable time previously, for it had mortified and the haunch had withered. Thus wounded, he must have strayed from another forest, for he was a German stag, marked with slits on both his ears; and there were no such stags in Glenquoich forest.
The late Kiamil Pasha, Governor of Salonika, was an old friend of mine. I first knew him when I was in command of the Undaunted, in which ship he lunched with me several times. He was a grand specimen of a fine old Turkish gentleman, one of the best among Turkish statesmen, intensely interested in the welfare of his country. I often went out snipe-shooting with the Turkish commander-in-chief round about Salonika. On these occasions, the Pasha invariably wore full uniform; and when we arrived at the shooting ground, we were always met by a squadron of cavalry. I imagined that the guard was furnished as a compliment to myself; and eventually I said to the Pasha that while it was very good of him to pay me the courtesy of a guard, I should be quite as happy if we went out shooting without it.
He replied that the guard was not intended as a compliment, but was ordered for my safety.
"What is the danger?"
"Brigands," said the Pasha.
"But there are no brigands here now."
"Are there not?" said the Pasha. "I killed fourteen yesterday."
And afterwards he showed me where he had rounded them up.
I have seen two whales killed. I saw a whale killed in the Pacific by an old sailing whaler. She sent four boats out and they hunted the whale, after it was harpooned, for eight hours before they killed it. A boat rowed close to the whale, the harpooner flung his harpoon, the whale sounded, his tail swung up like a flail and struck the water with a report like the report of a gun, and out flew the line from the boat. The man who eventually killed the whale was armed with a long flexible knife, which he plunged into the whale behind the fin. The vast carcase was towed alongside the ship, than which it was longer; men wearing spiked boots and using sharp spades went upon the whale; and as they sliced into the blubber, making cuts across the carcase, the piece called the "blanket piece" was hoisted inboard by means of a tackle, the whale thus turning gradually over until its whole circumference was stripped.
Many years afterwards, I saw a whale killed off Norway by a modern steam whaler. She steamed slowly after a school of whales, and fired a gun whose projectile was a shell attached to a harpoon. The shell burst inside the whale, killing it. The carcase was then towed alongside the steamer by boats, the operation taking about an hour and a half, and was then towed by the steamer to the whaleries. The whaling master told me that 850 whales had been killed off Norway during that year; and that among them was a whale with an American harpoon in it; wherefore he supposed that the whale must have voyaged round the Horn, or else north about beneath the ice.