It may be said that the same remark is applicable to the accounts we have of the powers of the four-ounce. There is an elephant killed stone dead at one hundred and twenty yards; a buffalo at six hundred, if not eight hundred. These are both unprecedented shots; but as sixteen drachms is a common charge with Mr Baker, and as we certainly never used a rifle heavy enough to bear a charge of an ounce of powder, we are not in a position to question them. Moreover, when we consider the performances of the Minié, we are inclined to regard them as quite possible, although distance, if not actually measured, must always be very much a matter of opinion. However, in reading this narrative of adventure, the experience of an intrepid sportsman, it must be remembered that only those incidents are selected for relation which were most remarkable or attended with the greatest risk. They are a collection of the most perilous moments of a life of peril, and we have simply to add up the long catalogue of those who have fallen victims in Ceylon to that sport which Mr Baker so ardently pursues, to perceive its danger; and so far from denying the possibility of those hairbreadth escapes which startle us in every page of this work, we should then be induced rather to wonder that its author still lives to tempt that Providence by which he has hitherto been so wonderfully preserved.
But we must not allow the rifle an undue share of our attention. Mr Baker has as good reason to be proud of his hounds as of his rifles, and there is a greater novelty to the English sportsman in hunting elk at Newera Ellia than in shooting elephants or buffaloes at Minneria. A buck elk—the Samber deer of India—stands about fourteen hands high at the shoulder, and weighs about six hundred pounds: he is in colour dark brown, with a mane of coarse bristly hair of six inches in length; the rest of his body is covered with the same coarse hair of about two inches in length. His antlers are sometimes upwards of three feet long, but seldom have more than six points. He is a solitary animal; when brought to bay he fights to the last, and charges man and hound indiscriminately, a choice hound being often the price of victory. The country in which he is hunted is the mountainous district in Ceylon; for though he is to be found in almost every part of the island, the sport is only prosecuted at an elevation which varies from four thousand to seven thousand feet above the sea. The sharp, bracing climate of Newera Ellia, while it agrees admirably with the hounds, enables the sportsman to undergo that prolonged and violent exercise on foot which the sport involves, and which would be utterly out of the question in the low country.
The principal features of the highlands of Ceylon being a series of wild marshy plains, forests, torrents, mountains, and precipices, a peculiar hound is required for elk-hunting. Upon the occasion of Mr Baker’s second visit, he arrived with a pack of thorough-bred foxhounds. These he soon found were quite a mistake; they invariably open upon the scent at a great distance, and after warning the elk too soon, they stick to him too long, and ultimately fall victims to chetahs or starvation, the penalty of inexperienced perseverance. The offspring of crosses with pointers, bloodhounds, and half-bred foxhounds, are the right stamp for the sport; while the Australian lurcher proves often of immense service upon the open. The hero of Mr Baker’s pack was a Manilla bloodhound of enormous strength and indomitable pluck. The performances of old Smut are worthy of a volume to themselves; and if his master could appreciate the merits of his favourite hound when alive, he proves himself an historian well qualified to do justice to his memory. The reader will also be proud to make the acquaintance of Killbuck, Bran, and Lena, who prove themselves good dogs and true. About sixteen miles from Newera Ellia, lie the Horton Plains, situated at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are perfectly uninhabited; and here it is that Mr Baker introduces us to his favourite sport. He and his friends have taken up their abode in a snug corner of the plains, where they have built for themselves a hunting-lodge and kennel. They are within hail of civilisation, but they depend almost entirely upon the dogs for sustenance, combined with the efforts of a perfect Soyer of a cook.
“This knight of the gridiron was a famous fellow, and could perform wonders; of stoical countenance, he was never seen to smile. His whole thoughts were concentrated in the mysteries of gravies, and the magic transformation of one animal into another by the art of cookery: in this he excelled to a marvellous degree. The farce of ordering dinner was always absurd. It was something in this style. ‘Cook!’ (Cook answers) ‘Coming sar!’ (enter cook).—‘Now, cook, you make a good dinner; do you hear?’ Cook: ‘Yes, sar: master tell, I make.’—‘Well, mulligatawny soup.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Calves’ head, with tongue, and brain-sauce.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Gravy omelette.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Mutton chops.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Fowl cotelets.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Beefsteaks.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Marrow-bones.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Rissoles.’ ‘Yes, sar.’ All these various dishes he literally imitated uncommonly well, the different portions of an elk being their only foundation.”
During a trip of two months at the Horton Plains, Mr Baker killed forty-three elk, which was working the pack pretty hard. At Newera Ellia the game, though not quite so plentiful, is sufficiently abundant to satisfy any reasonable sportsman, and an extract of three months’ hunting, at his own door, from our author’s game-book, shows a return of eleven bucks, seventeen does, and four hogs.
Though the sport of elk-hunting is most exciting, the recital of elk-hunting experiences must ever be somewhat monotonous: there is so little room for varied incident. The hunter follows the music of his pack over the open, at a long swinging trot, and bursts his way through the dense jungle, and down the steep bank to the foaming torrent, in the midst of which the elk is keeping the hounds at bay:—
“There they are in that deep pool formed by the river as it sweeps round the rock. A buck! a noble fellow! Now he charges at the hounds, and strikes the foremost beneath the water with his forefeet; up they come again to the surface,—they hear their master’s well-known shout,—they look round and see his welcome figure on the steep bank. Another moment, a tremendous splash, and he is among his hounds, and all are swimming towards their noble game. At them he comes with a fierce rush. Avoid him as you best can, ye hunters, man, and hounds!”
This reminds us of an amusing experience of our own, under somewhat similar circumstances. The master of one of the packs at Newera Ellia, in those days a good specimen of a Ceylon Nimrod, and an old elk-hunter, was anxious to show a naval friend of his the sport in perfection. We happened to be of the party, and before long our ears were rejoiced with that steady chorus which always tells of a buck at bay. Away we dashed through the thorny jungle, and arrived at the edge of a deep black pool, in which the elk was swimming, surrounded by the entire pack. Another moment and we should have formed one of the damp but picturesque group, when our naval friend, who had been left a little in the rear, unused to such rough work, came up torn and panting. It suddenly occurs to Nimrod, just as he is going to jump in, that it is hardly civil to his guest to secure to himself the sportsman’s most delicious moment; he feels the sacrifice he is making as, with a forced blandness, and an anxious glance at the buck, he presses his hunting-knife into Captain F.’s hand, saying, “After you, sir, pray.” “Eh! after me; where?—you don’t mean me to go in there, do you?” “Certainly not, if you would rather stay here; in that case be so good as give me the knife, as there is no time to be lost.” “Oh, ah!—I didn’t understand;—how very stupid! Go in—oh certainly: I shall be delighted;” and in dashed the gallant captain with his two-edged blade gleaming in the morning sun. For a second the waters closed over him, then he appeared spluttering and choking, and waving aloft the naked steel preparatory to going down again; it was plain that he could not swim a stroke, and it cost us no little trouble to pull out the plucky sailor, who took the whole thing as a matter of course, and would evidently have gone anywhere that he had been told. It is a difficult matter to stick an elk while swimming, as the hide is very thick, and the want of any sufficient purchase renders an effective blow almost impossible. There is also a great risk of being struck by the elk’s fore-legs, while impetuous young dogs are apt to take a nip of their master by mistake. A powerful buck at bay is always a formidable customer, and the largest dogs may be impaled like kittens if they do not learn to temper their valour with discretion.
“The only important drawback,” says Mr Baker, “to the pleasure of elk-hunting is the constant loss of dogs. The best are always sure to go. What with deaths by boars, leopards, elk, and stray hounds, the pack is with difficulty maintained. Poor old Bran, who, being a thorough-bred greyhound, is too fine in the skin for such rough hunting, has been sewn up in so many places that he is a complete specimen of needlework;” while Killbuck and Smut, the hero of about four hundred deaths of elk and boar, have terminated their glorious careers. Killbuck was pierced by the sharp antlers of a spotted buck, after a splendid course over the plains in the low country. If the bay of the deer is not so good as that of the elk, the enjoyment of riding to your game renders deer-coursing a far more agreeable sport than elk-hunting. Unfortunately for Killbuck his buck came to bay as pluckily as any elk, and had pinned the noble hound to the earth, before his master, who had been thrown in the course of a reckless gallop, could come up to the rescue. But the boar is the most destructive animal to the pack, and a fierce immovable bay, in which every dog joins in an impetuous chorus, is always a dreaded sound to the hunter, who knows well that tusks, and not antlers, are at work.
The following description of a boar at bay will give some idea of the scene that then occurs:—