I had not at that time introduced the lance or spear, but when a boar happened to take to the open I had frequently pursued on horseback and killed with an ancient rapier I possessed.
Mounted on a little Barb, about fourteen hands three, I once pursued, gun in hand, a large sow across the plain of Awára. We came suddenly on a ditch formed by an estuary from the sea, about sixteen feet broad. No bank was visible until I saw the boar suddenly disappear, and before I could pull up, my nag tried to clear the ditch, but failed, as the ground was soft on the brink, so in we plumped headlong into thick mud and water, gun and all; but a pistol, loose in my holster, by good fortune was cast high and dry on the opposite bank.
The horse, sow, and I wallowed for some seconds in the mud together, each of us scrambling out about the same moment, for I had chosen an easier ascent of the bank to clamber up than the sow had done. I left my gun swamped in the mud, and, seizing hold of the pistol, remounted. Away we went again. It was about a quarter of a mile to the bush, where the sow would be safe. I came up alongside and fired, but only wounded her; she turned and made a jump to seize hold of my leg, but missed, passing her fore leg up to the joint in my right stirrup, and there her leg and my foot were jammed. The hind legs of the sow just touched the ground. She tried to bite my knee; I struggled to release my foot and the sow her leg. I had no other weapon than the exploded pistol, and my fear was that the stirrup-leather would give way, and then, if I fell, the sow would have it all her own way. The pain from my jammed instep was intense, but after a few seconds the sow freed her leg and then turned on my horse, who cleverly leapt aside as she charged.
The sow then entered the thicket, badly wounded, and when the dogs came up we found and killed her. The hunters, who had viewed the chase from the side of the hill, and had been hallooing joyously on witnessing the pig, horse, and me tumble into the ditch, were greatly amused in aiding me to remove the thick coating of grey mud which shrouded my person, my gun, and the body of my horse.
On another occasion, when a very large boar, slightly wounded, was making up the side of a rocky hill, bare of bush, a strange Moor, with a long gun, who had joined the hunt, ran along the open to a narrow path where the boar would have to pass, and squatted down to pot him. I was about forty yards off, and shouted as the boar made towards him, ‘Look out! Stand aside of the path!’—but the stranger remained steady, fired, and then jumped up and ran.
The infuriated beast pursued and knocked him headlong over, ripping his legs and body as he struggled to get up. I ran up with another hunter, but boar and man were so mixed up I could not fire. The boar, burying its snout under the man’s clothes, ripped his body severely, then seizing his woollen dress in its mouth like a bull-dog, knelt on his prostrate body. I dared not fire; so laying hold of the hilt of a sword my companion carried, and finding the point too blunt to pierce the ironclad hide, I told the owner to take hold of the point, and putting the blade under the boar’s throat, we sawed away until the beast fell dead, still holding the man’s dress in his jaws. The wounded Moor, who was built like a Samson, fainted away from loss of blood. We stanched his wounds, making a tourniquet with handkerchief and stick, laid him on the pad of a mule, and sent him into town to a room in my stable, where he was attended to by a surgeon for three weeks and recovered. On taking leave of me, he observed it was his first and would be his last boar-hunt. This man, as I learnt afterwards, was a famous cattle-lifter. He told the hunters, that out of gratitude for my care of him, he would never rob my cows or the cattle of my friends.
We were wont to hunt for a couple of days every fortnight at Sharf el Akab and Awára, but finding that the mountaineers from the hills of Beni M’Suar and Jebel Habíb, who dwell about twelve miles from this hunting-ground, had been in the habit of coming down in large parties once a week to hunt and were destroying the game, we determined, from a spirit of rivalry, to hunt more frequently.
There had been conflicts between my hunters and the mountaineers, and during a beat for boar, when a number of these wild fellows had joined our hunt, I heard bullets whizzing and cutting the branches near to where I stood. One of these mountaineers was caught by my party, and a vigorous bastinado was inflicted on the culprit, who had been seen to take a deliberate shot at me.
In less than six months the boar at Sharf el Akab and Awára were destroyed, except a huge ‘solitaire,’ who had made his lair on the rocky hill of Bu Amar, then overgrown with impenetrable bush. He was a very wary animal, who refused to bolt when bayed at by dogs, frequently killing or wounding those that ventured to approach his lair.
At that time a Spaniard had brought, much to the annoyance of the peasants, a herd of tame pigs to feed in the cork-wood, for, as the peasants reported, the ‘accursed animals’ not only fed on acorns and white truffles, which abound there, but ravaged also their grain crops, whither the Spaniard had been seen to drive the herd at night to feed.