Not only did Sir John retain to the end of his life all his love of sport, but, like most sportsmen, he dwelt with pleasure on his recollections of past encounters. Many of his reminiscences he put together, now that he was comparatively an idle man, in the form of articles which were printed in Murray’s Magazine for 1887, under the title of ‘Scraps from my Note-Book.’ Some of these, supplemented with additions subsequently made by himself or with details since gathered from his letters, are reproduced here, though they for the most part belong to a much earlier date. Thus, on the subject of boar-hunting, he wrote:—
The Moorish hunters are generally small farmers or peasants from the villages around Tangier, who join the hunt solely from love of sport. Some of them act as beaters, wearing leathern aprons and greaves—such as the ancient Greek peasantry wore—to protect their legs. Of these, some carry bill-hooks to cut their way through the thicket, others long guns. They are accompanied by native dogs (suggestive of a cross between a collie and a jackal), with noses that can wind a boar from afar, and do good service.
As the thickets where the animals lie are for the most part bordered by the sea on one side, and by lake or plain on the other, the boar, when driven, generally make straight for the guns; and we were wont to have capital sport, shooting on an average about fifteen boar in two days’ hunting. There are also jackals and porcupine; and, during a beat near Brij, a panther once took me by surprise, jumping across the path where I was posted before I could fire. This animal was shot afterwards on a neighbouring hill.
On one occasion on the promontory of Brij, which is surrounded by the sea and the river ‘Taherdats’ except for a narrow slip of sand on the northern side, sometimes flooded at high tides, we found thirty-six boar in one beat, and killed fourteen. It was an exciting sight to see the boar breaking from the bush across the neck of sand about 150 yards broad. The herd did not break together, but came separately and continuously. A large tusker who led the van was wounded as he sallied from the bush pursued by dogs, and forthwith charged the man who had fired; and then beaters, who ran up to the rescue, were followed again by other boar, who, wounded in their turn, pursued the beaters that were hurrying after the first boar; then came dogs, pigs, beaters, more dogs and pigs. Volleys were fired, up, down, and across the line, regardless of the rules of the hunt. Great was the excitement; several beaters were knocked down by the boar, but no one was ripped, though dogs and boar lay wounded on the sands all around. I shot five boar: one great tusker, being wounded, sat on his haunches in the defiant posture of the Florentine boar, so I ran up, assassin-like, from behind and plunged my knife into his heart.
In one of the beats, a hunter named ‘Shebá,’ a veteran past seventy, had just shot a boar, when the dogs came in full cry after another, and he had only time to pour in the powder carried loose in his leathern pouch, and to put the long iron ramrod down the barrel, when another tusker came to the front. Shebá fired and sent the ramrod like a skewer through the body of the boar, who charged and knocked him over. Shebá fell flat on his face, neither moving arm nor leg, whilst the boar stood over him, cutting into ribbons his hooded woollen ‘jelab.’ He shouted for help, exclaiming ‘Fire! fire!’ I ran up within a few feet. ‘I fear to hit you,’ I said. ‘Fire!’ he cried; ‘I would rather be shot than be killed by a “halluf” (pig).’
From a Photograph by Baron Whetnall.
The last Hunt in 1886; Sir John on “E’dhem.”
Walker & Boutall Ph. Sc.
I stooped low, and raising the muzzle of my gun, shot the boar through the heart. The huge carcass fell upon Shebá, who, when released from the weight, got up and shook me by the hand heartily, saying, ‘Praise be to God the Merciful! Thanks to you I have escaped death.’ I withdrew the ramrod, which had passed right through the body of the animal.