His brother now comes up:—
“It was the work of an instant. B. fired without effect. The horns were lowered, their points were on either side of me, and the muzzle of the gun barely touched his forehead when I pulled the trigger, and three shillings’ worth of small change rattled into his hard head. Down he went, and rolled over with the suddenly checked momentum of his charge. Away went B. and I as fast as our heels would carry us, through the water and over the plain, knowing that he was not dead but only stunned.”
We have generally found in the course of our own short experience that there was nothing for meeting a charge like a little ready money, but this is squaring accounts with a vengeance. In a moment more Mr Baker must inevitably have paid the debt of nature—he paid 3s. 6d. instead, and we will venture to say he never before spent that sum more quickly or satisfactorily to himself. Upon the following day our two sportsmen are charged by a herd, and again narrowly escape destruction. “Although,” says Mr Baker, “I have since killed about two hundred wild buffaloes, I have never witnessed another charge by a herd. This was an extraordinary occurrence, and fortunately stands alone in buffalo-shooting.” Mr Baker only thinks it necessary to select from his extensive buffalo-shooting experiences those occasions which involved considerable personal hazard, and exhibited, at the same time, the extraordinary courage and instinct of the animal. Unless buffalo-shooting be followed up as a sport by itself, the real character of the animal must remain unknown. “Some will fight and some will fly, and no one can tell which will take place—it is at the option of the beast. Caution and good shooting, combined with heavy rifles, are necessary. Without heavy metal the sport would be superlatively dangerous, if regularly followed up.” Mr Baker places great confidence in, and is not a little proud of, his heavy rifles, and he gives some wonderful instances of his performances with them, which fully justify his high estimate of their capabilities. The last day’s work on the occasion of his subsequent visits to Minneria is worthy of record. He begins by knocking over a bull at three hundred and fifty-two paces, then a cow from horseback at a long range, and a bull at about four hundred yards. These are mere experiments; presently he comes to closer quarters. A young bull is hidden in a thick cover, and our author rides in to dislodge him:—
“I beat about to no purpose for about twenty minutes, and I was on the point of giving it up when I suddenly saw the tall reeds bow down just before me. I beard the rush of an animal as he burst through, and I just saw the broad black nose, quickly followed by the head and horns, as the buffalo charged into me. The horse reared to his full height as the horns almost touched his chest, and I fired as well as I was able. In another instant I was rolling on the ground, with my horse upon me, in a cloud of smoke and confusion.
“In a most unsportsmanlike manner (as persons may exclaim who were not there), I hid behind my horse as he regained his legs. All was still—the snorting of the frightened horse was all that I could hear. I expected to have seen the infuriated buffalo among us. I peeped over the horse’s back, and, to my delight and surprise, I saw the carcass of the bull lying within three feet of him. His head was pierced by the ball exactly between the horns, and death had been instantaneous. The horse having reared to his full height, had entangled his hind legs in the grass, and he had fallen backwards without being touched by the buffalo, although the horns were close into him.”
On his way home, after this disagreeable rencontre, Mr Baker falls in with a small herd of five, and drops both bulls and an infuriated cow, the latter in the act of charging, at a distance of fifteen paces. The two remaining cows and a calf are killed in their retreat, and Mr Baker is strolling home satisfied with a bag of ten buffaloes, when he suddenly stumbles upon a herd of elephants. These beat an immediate retreat. But singling out a fine bull, Mr Baker drops him severely wounded with the four ounce, and, taking his second gun, he runs up just in time to catch him as he is half risen.
“Feeling sure of him, I ran up within two yards of his head, and fired into his forehead. To my amazement, he jumped quickly up, and with a loud trumpet he rushed towards the jungle. I could just keep close alongside him, as the grass was short, and the ground level, and being determined to get him, I ran close to his shoulder, and, taking a steady shot behind the ear, I fired my remaining barrel. Judge of my surprise,—it only increased his speed, and in another moment he reached the jungle: he was gone. He seemed to bear a charmed life. I had taken two shots within a few feet of him that I would have staked my life upon. I looked at my gun. Ye gods! I had been firing snipe shot at him. It was my rascally horsekeeper, who had actually handed me the shot-gun, which I had received as the double-barrelled ball-gun, that I knew was carried by a gun-bearer. How I did thrash him! If the elephant had charged instead of making off, I should have been caught, to a certainty.”
This is a judgment upon him evidently for boasting too much of his battery. The abundance of game at Minneria, however, is not to be compared to the enormous sports which Mr Baker finds in the almost unexplored country beyond Hambautotte. “Here the deer were in such masses that I restricted myself to bucks, and I at length became completely satiated. There was too much game. During a whole day’s walk I was certainly not five minutes without seeing either deer, elk, buffaloes, or hogs.”
Gradually our sportsman gets still more particular; he refuses tempting shots, and goes out simply in search of large antlers. None appearing of sufficient size he does not fire, and only kills buffaloes if they look vicious, and he can get a charge out of them. Notwithstanding this dainty shooting, he comes home one morning to breakfast, at eight o’clock, with three fine bucks and two buffaloes in his bag. Altogether we cannot charge Mr Baker with indiscriminate slaughter. A thorough sportsman, he is a humane man; but if we may so phrase it, he is a little too conscientious in his sport. He gives us glimpses of much that is interesting in his search after game; but, because it is unconnected with the matter in hand, he hurries us away upon the track of a rogue elephant or a buffalo, and will not allow us to linger for a moment upon those fairy scenes which he has himself conjured up, or to inquire more deeply into subjects of interest he has himself suggested. We should have liked to have heard a little more of the Veddahs, for instance; but the district they inhabit is the finest part of Ceylon for sport, so of course we must not expect to be told about wild men when there are wild beasts in the case. We have, however, a brief description of the manners and habits (or rather want of habits) of the animal:—
“The Veddah in person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy; his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse’s tail than human hair. He despises money; but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking. The women are horribly ugly, and are almost entirely naked. They have no matrimonial regulations, and the children are squalid and miserable. Still these people are perfectly happy, and would prefer their present wandering life to the most luxurious restraint. Speaking a language of their own, with habits akin to those of wild animals, they keep entirely apart from the Cingalese. They barter deer-horns and bees’-wax with the travelling Moormen pedlars in exchange for their trifling requirements. If they have food they eat it; if they have none they go without until by some chance they procure it. In the mean time they chew the bark of various trees, and search for berries, while they wend their way for many miles to some remembered store of deer’s flesh and honey, laid by in a hollow tree.”