THE CROWN OF CHIEF MOUNTAIN FROM THE SOUTHEAST.

Hunting
In Many Lands

EDITORS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

NEW-YORK
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY
1895

Copyright, 1895, by
Forest and Stream Publishing Company

Forest and Stream Press,
New York, N. Y., U. S. A.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Note.—The mountain sheep's head on the cover is from a photograph of the head of the big ram killed by Mr. Gould in Lower California, as described in the article "To the Gulf of Cortez."

Preface

The first volume published by the Boone and Crockett Club, under the title "American Big Game Hunting," confined itself, as its title implied, to sport on this continent. In presenting the second volume, a number of sketches are included written by members who have hunted big game in other lands. The contributions of those whose names are so well known in connection with explorations in China and Tibet, and in Africa, have an exceptional interest for men whose use of the rifle has been confined entirely to the North American continent.

During the two years that have elapsed since the appearance of its last volume, the Boone and Crockett Club has not been idle. The activity of its members was largely instrumental in securing at last the passage by Congress of an act to protect the Yellowstone National Park, and to punish crimes and offenses within its borders, though it may be questioned whether even their efforts would have had any result had not the public interest been aroused, and the Congressional conscience pricked, by the wholesale slaughter of buffalo which took place in the Park in March, 1894, as elsewhere detailed by Capt. Anderson and the editors. Besides this, the Club has secured the passage, by the New York Legislature, of an act incorporating the New York Zoölogical Society, and a considerable representation of the Club is found in the list of its officers and managers. Other efforts, made by Boone and Crockett members in behalf of game and forest protection, have been less successful, and there is still a wide field for the Club's activities.

Public sentiment should be aroused on the general question of forest preservation, and especially in the matter of securing legislation which will adequately protect the game and the forests of the various forest reservations already established. Special attention was called to this point in the earlier volume published by the Club, from which we quote:

If it was worth while to establish these reservations, it is worth while to protect them. A general law, providing for the adequate guarding of all such national possessions, should be enacted by Congress, and wherever it may be necessary such Federal laws should be supplemented by laws of the States in which the reservations lie. The timber and the game ought to be made the absolute property of the Government, and it should be constituted a punishable offense to appropriate such property within the limits of the reservation. The game and timber on a reservation should be regarded as Government property, just as are the mules and the cordwood at an army post. If it is a crime to take the latter, it should be a crime to plunder a forest reservation.

In these reservations is to be found to-day every species of large game known to the United States, and the proper protection of the reservations means the perpetuating in full supply of all the indigenous mammals. If this care is provided, no species of American large game need ever become absolutely extinct; and intelligent effort for game protection may well be directed toward securing through national legislation the policing of forest preserves by timber and game wardens.

A really remarkable phenomenon in American animal life, described in the paper on the Yellowstone Park Protection Act, is the attitude now assumed toward mankind by the bears, both grizzly and black, in the Yellowstone National Park. The preservation of the game in the Park has unexpectedly resulted in turning a great many of the bears into scavengers for the hotels within the Park limits. Their tameness and familiarity are astonishing; they act much more like hogs than beasts of prey. Naturalists now have a chance of studying their character from an entirely new standpoint, and under entirely new conditions. It would be well worth the while of any student of nature to devote an entire season in the Park simply to study of bear life; never before has such an opportunity been afforded.

The incident mentioned on [page 421] was witnessed by Mr. W. Hallett Phillipps and Col. John Hay. Since this incident occurred, one bear has made a practice of going into the kitchen of the Geyser Hotel, where he is fed on pies. If given a chance, the bears will eat the pigs that are kept in pens near the hotels; but they have not shown any tendency to molest the horses, or to interfere in any way with the human beings around the hotels.

These incidents, and the confidence which the elk, deer and other animals in the Park have come to feel in man, are interesting, for they show how readily wild creatures may be taught to look upon human beings as friends.

Theodore Roosevelt,
George Bird Grinnell.

New York, August 1, 1895.

Hunting in Many Lands

Hunting in East Africa

In the month of July, 1889, I was encamped in the Taveta forest, 250 miles from the east coast, and at the eastern foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was accompanied by my servant, George Galvin, an American lad seventeen years old, and had a following of 130 Zanzibaris. My battery consisted of the following weapons: one 8-bore smooth, using a cartridge loaded with 10 drams of powder and a 2-ounce spherical ball; one .577 and one .450 Express rifle, and one 12-bore Paradox. All these were made by Messrs. Holland & Holland. My servant carried an old 12-bore rifle made by Lang (intended to shoot 4-1/2 drams of powder, but whose cartridges he recklessly loaded with more than 7) and a .45-90 Winchester of the model of 1886.

Taveta forest has been often described by pens far abler than mine, so I will not attempt to do this. It is inhabited by a most friendly tribe of savages, who at the time of my visit to them possessed sufficient food to be able to supply the wants of my caravan. I therefore made it a base at which I could leave the major part of my following, and from which I could with comfort and safety venture forth on shooting trips, accompanied by only a few men.

The first of these excursions was made to the shores of Lake Jipé, six hours' march from Taveta, for the purpose of shooting hippos. I took with me my whole battery and thirteen men. This unlucky number perhaps influenced my fortunes, for I returned to Taveta empty handed and fever stricken, after a stay on the shores of the lake lasting some days. However, my experiences were interesting, if only because they were in great measure the result of ignorance. Up to this time my sporting experience had dealt only with snipe and turkey shooting in Florida, for on my road from the coast, the little game seen was too wary to give me a chance of putting a rifle to my shoulder.

The shores of Lake Jipé, where I pitched my tent, were quite flat and separated from the open water of the lake by a wide belt of swamp growth. I had brought with me, for the purpose of constructing a raft, several bundles of the stems of a large palm growing in Taveta. These were dry and as light as cork. In a few hours' time my men constructed a raft, fifteen feet in length and five feet in width. On trial, it was found capable of supporting two men, but even with this light load it sank some inches below the surface of the water. I fastened a deal box on the forward end as seat, and instructed one of the men, who said he understood boatman's work, to stand in the stern and punt the craft along with a pole. During the night my slumbers were constantly disturbed by the deep, ominous grunting of hippopotami, which, as if to show their contempt for my prowess, chose a path to their feeding grounds which led them within a few yards of my camp. The night, though starlit, was too dark for a shot, so I curbed my impatience till the morning.

As most people are aware, the day begins in the tropics as nearly as possible at 6 o'clock and lasts twelve hours. Two hours before dawn I was up and fortifying myself against the damp morning air with a good breakfast of roast chicken, rice and coffee. My men, wrapped in their thin cotton shirts, lay about the fires on the damp ground, seemingly unmindful of rheumatism and fever, and only desirous to sleep as long as possible. I awoke my crew at a little after 5, and he, unassisted, launched the raft. The swamp grass buoyed it up manfully, so that it looked as if it disdained to touch the yellow waters of the lake. When it had been pushed along till the water was found to be two feet deep, I had myself carried to the raft and seated myself on the box. I was clad only in a flannel shirt, and carried my .577 with ten rounds of ammunition. As we slowly started on our way, my men woke up one by one, and shouted cheering words to us, such as, "Look out for the crocodiles!" "If master dies, who'll pay us!" These cries, added to the dismal chill of the air and my boatman's only too apparent dislike of his job, almost caused me to turn back; but, of course, that was out of the question.

Half an hour from the shore found me on the edge of the open water, and, as if to endorse my undertaking, day began to break. That sunrise! Opposite me the rough outlines of the Ugucno Mountains, rising several thousand feet, lost their shadows one by one, and far to the right towered Mt. Kilimanjaro, nearly four miles high, its snowy rounded top roseate with the soft light of dawn. But in Africa at least one's higher sensibilities are dulled by the animal side of his nature, and I fear I welcomed the sun more for the warmth of its rays than for the beautiful and fleeting vision it produced. Then the hippos! While the sun was rising my raft was not at rest, but was being propelled by slow strong strokes toward the center of the lake, and as the darkness lessened I saw the surface of the lake dotted here and there by spots, which soon resolved themselves into the black, box-like heads of my game. They were to all appearance motionless and appeared quite unconscious or indifferent to the presence, in their particular domain, of our strange craft and its burden.

I approached them steadily, going more slowly as the water grew deeper, and more time was needed for the pulling out and dipping in of the pole. When, however, I had reached a position some 150 yards from the nearest group, five in number, they all with a loud snort faced me. I kept on, despite the ardent prayer of the boatman, and when within 100 yards, and upon seeing three of the hippos disappear beneath the surface, I took careful aim and fired at the nearest of the remaining two. I could see the splash of my bullet as it skipped harmlessly along the surface of the lake, and knew I had missed. At once all heads in sight disappeared. There must have been fifty in view when the sun rose. Presently, one by one, they reappeared, and this time, as if impelled by curiosity, came much closer than before. I took aim at one not fifty yards away, and could hear the thud of the bullet as it struck. I thought, as the hippo at once disappeared, that it was done for. I had not yet learned that the brain of these animals is very small, and that the only fatal shot is under the ear.

After this shot, as after my first, all heads vanished, but this time I had to wait much longer ere they ventured to show themselves. When they did reappear, however, it was too close for comfort. One great head, blinking its small eyes and holding its little horselike ears at attention, was not twenty feet away, and another was still closer on my other side. While hesitating at which to shoot I lost my opportunity, for they both ducked simultaneously.

I was riveted to my uncomfortable seat, and I could hear my boatman murmuring "Allah!" with fright, when slowly, but steadily, I felt the raft rise under my feet. Instinctively I remembered I had but one .577 rifle, and hastened, my hands trembling, to fasten it with a loose rope's end to the raft. My boatman yelled with terror, and at that fearful cry the raft splashed back in the water and all was again still. One of the hippos, either with his back or head, must have come in contact with the bottom of the raft as he rose to the surface. How far he would have gone had not the negro screamed I do not know, but as it was it seemed as if we were being held in mid air for many minutes. I fancy the poor brute was almost as frightened as we were, for he did not reappear near the raft.

I now thought discretion the better part of valor, and satisfied myself with shooting at the animal from a somewhat greater distance. I hit two more in the head and two—who showed a good foot of their fat bodies above the water—in the sides. None floated on the surface, legs up, as I had been led to expect they would do; but the men assured me that they never come to the surface till sundown, no matter what time of day they may have been shot. This, needless to state, I afterward found, is not true. My ammunition being exhausted, and the sun blazing hot, I returned to camp. I awoke the next day feeling anything but energetic; nevertheless, I set out to see what game the land held ready for the hunter, dissatisfied with his experiences on water. The country on the eastern side of Lake Jipé is almost flat, but is dotted here and there with low steep gneiss hills, stretching in an indefinite line parallel to the lake and some three miles distant from it. I made my way toward these hills. On the way I put up some very small antelope, which ran in such an irregular manner that they presented no mark to my unskilled arm.

We reached the hills, and I climbed one and scanned the horizon with my glasses. Far to the northwest I spied two black spots in a grassy plain. I gave the glasses to my gun-bearer and he at once said, "Rhinoceros!" I had never seen these beasts except in a menagerie, and the mention of the name brought me to my feet eager to come to a closer acquaintance with them. The wind blew toward me and the game was too far for the need of caution, so I walked rapidly in their direction. When I got to within 250 yards, I could quite easily distinguish the appearance of my quarry. They were lying down and apparently oblivious to my approach—perhaps asleep. My gun-bearer (a Swahili) now began to show an anxiety to turn back. This desire is, in many cases, the distinguishing trait of this race. On we went, but now cautiously and silently. The grass was about two feet high, so that by crawling on hands and knees, one could conceal most of his body. But this position is not a pleasant one with a blazing sun on the back, rough soil under the knees and a thirteen-pound rifle in the hand.

We got to within fifty yards. I looked back for the negro with my .577. He was lying flat on his stomach fifty yards to the rear. I stood up to beckon him, but he did not move. The rhinos did, and my attention was recalled to them by hearing loud snorts, and, turning my head, I saw the two beasts on their feet facing me. I had never shot an 8-bore in my life before, so it is not to be wondered at that the shock of the recoil placed me on my back. The animals were off before I could recover my feet, and my second barrel was not discharged. I ran after them, but the pace of a rhino is much faster than it looks, and I soon found pursuit useless. I returned to the place where they had lain, and on looking about found traces of fresh blood. My gun-bearer, as an explanation for his behavior, said that rhinos were devils, and were not to be approached closely. He said I must be possessed of miraculous power, or they would have charged and slain me. The next day, fever laid me low, and, though the attack was slight, some days elapsed before I could muster strength to take me back to Taveta.

After a few days' rest in camp—strengthened by good food and spurred to fresh exertion by the barren result of my first effort—I set out again, accompanied by more men and in a different direction.

My faith in myself received a pleasant encouragement the day before my departure. My head man came to me and said trade was at a standstill, and that the natives could not be induced to bring food to sell. On asking him why, I learned that the Taveta people had found three dead hippos in Lake Jipé and one rhino near its shores. Meat—a rare treat to them, even when not quite fresh—filled their minds and bodies, and they were proof even against the most tempting beads and the brightest cloths. I cannot say that I shared my head man's anxiety. The fact that I had not labored altogether in vain, even though others reaped the benefit of my efforts, filled me with a certain satisfaction.

A day's march from Taveta brought me to the banks of an almost stagnant brook, where I made camp. The country round about was a plain studded with low hills, here thinly thatched with short grass, and there shrouded with thick bush, above which every now and then rose a giant acacia. The morning after my arrival, I set out from camp with my 8-bore in my hands and hope in my heart. Not 200 yards from my tent, I was startled by a snort and then by the sight of two rhinos dashing across my path some fifty yards away. This time I did not succumb to my gun's recoil, but had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing, from a standing position, the animals disappear in the bush. I made after them and found, to my delight, a clear trail of fresh blood. Eagerly pressing on, I was somewhat suddenly checked in my career by almost stumbling over a rhino apparently asleep on its side, with its head toward me. Bang! went the 8-bore and down I went. I was the only creature disturbed by the shot, as the rhino had been dead some minutes—slain by my first shot; and my satisfaction was complete when I found the hole made by my bullet. My men shouted and sang over this, the first fruits of my expedition, and even at this late day I forgive myself for the feeling of pride I then experienced. I have a table at home made of a piece of this animal's hide, and supported in part by one of its horns.

The next day I made an early start and worked till 4 o'clock P. M., with no result. Then, being some eight miles from camp, I turned my face toward home. I had not gone far, and had reached the outskirts of an almost treeless savanna, when my gun-bearer brought me to a halt by the word mbogo. This I knew meant buffalo. I adjusted my glass and followed the direction of my man's finger. There, 500 yards away, I saw a solitary buffalo feeding slowly along toward two low bushes, but on the further side of them. I did not think what rifle I held (it was a .450), but dashed forward at once. My gun-bearer was more thoughtful and brought with him my

.577. We actually ran. When within eighty or ninety yards of the two bushes behind which the beast was now hidden. I slackened pace and approached more cautiously. My heart was beating and my hands trembling with the exertion of running when I reached the nearest bush, and my nerves were not exactly steadied by meeting the vicious gaze of a large buffalo, who stood not thirty feet on the other side. My gun-bearer in an instant forced the .577 into my hands, and I took aim at the shoulder of the brute and fired, without knowing exactly what I was doing. The smoke cleared, and there, almost in his tracks, lay my first buffalo. His ignorance of my noisy and careless approach was apparently accounted for by his great age. His hide was almost hairless and his horns worn blunt with many encounters. He must have been quite deaf and almost blind, or his behavior cannot be accounted for. The noise made by our approach, even with the favorable wind, was sufficient to frighten any animal, or at least put it on its guard.

My men, who were dreadfully afraid of big game of all sorts, when they saw the buffalo lying dead, danced with joy and exultation. They kicked the dead body and shouted curses at it. Camp was distant a good two hours' march, and the day was drawing to a close. The hungry howl of the hyenas warned me that my prize would soon be taken from me were it left unguarded. So piles of firewood were made and the carcass surrounded by a low wall of flames. I left three men in charge and set out for camp. There was but little light and my way lay through bits of forest and much bush. Our progress was slow, and my watch read 10:30 P. M. before I reached my tent and bed.

The following day I set out for a shooting ground distant two days' march from where I had been camped. Several rivers lay in my path and two tribes of natives. These natives inhabit thick forest and are in terror of strangers, as they are continually harassed by their neighbors. When they saw the smallness of my force, however, they endeavored to turn me aside, but without success. Quiet and determination generally win with these people. The rivers gave me more trouble, as they were deep and swift of current, and my friends, the natives, had removed all bridges. But none of the streams exceeded thirty feet in width, and an hour's hard work with our axes always provided us with a bridge.

The second day from my former camp brought me to the outskirts of the forest and the beginning of open country. I had hardly made camp before three Swahili traders came to me, and after the usual greetings began to weep in chorus. Their story was a common one. They had set out from Mombasa with twelve others to trade for slaves and ivory with the natives who inhabit the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Fortune had favored them, and after four months they were on their way homeward with eighteen slaves and five good sized tusks. The first day's journey was just over when they were attacked by natives, three of their number slain and all their property stolen. In the darkness they could not distinguish what natives attacked them; but their suspicions rested on the very tribe among whom they had spent the four months, and from whom they had purchased the ivory and slaves. I gave them a little cloth and some food, and a note to my people at Taveta to help them on their way. Of course, they were slave traders, and as such ought possibly to have been beaten from my camp. But it is undoubtedly a fact that Mahomedans look on slave trading as a perfectly legitimate occupation; and if people are not breaking their own laws, I cannot see that a stranger should treat them as brigands and refuse them the least aid when in distress. I know that my point of view in this matter has few supporters in civilization.

The next day, after a short march, I pitched my tent on the banks of a small stream, and then set out to prospect for game. I found nothing, but that night my slumbers were disturbed by the splashing and grunting of a herd of buffalo drinking.

These sounds kept me awake, so that I was enabled to make a very early start—setting out with four men at 4:45. The natives had assured me that the buffalo came to drink about midnight, and then fed slowly back to their favorite sleeping-places in the thick bush, reaching there just about sunrise. By making such an early start I hoped to come up with my quarry in the open places on the edge of the thick bush just before dawn, when the light is sufficiently bright to enable one to see the foresight of a rifle. Dew falls like rain in this part of the world, and we had not gone fifty paces in the long grass before we were soaking wet, and dismally cold to boot. My guide, cheered by the prospect of a good present, led us confidently along the most intricate paths and through the thickest bush. The moon overhead, which was in its fifteenth day, gave excellent light. Every now and then some creature would dash across our path, or stand snorting fearfully till we had passed. These were probably waterbuck and bushbuck. Toward half past five the light of the moon paled before the first glow of dawn, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of a treeless prairie, dotted here and there with bushes and covered with short dry grass. Across this plain lay the bush where my guide assured me the buffalo slept during the day, and according to him at that moment somewhere between me and this bush wandered at least 100 buffalo. There was little wind, and what there was came in gentle puffs against our right cheeks. I made a sharp detour to the left, walking quickly for some twenty minutes. Then, believing ourselves to be below the line of the buffalo, and therefore free to advance in their direction, we did so.

Just as the sun rose we had traversed the plain and stood at the edge of what my men called the nyumba ya mbogo (the buffalo's home). We were too late. Fresh signs everywhere showed that my guide had spoken the truth. Now I questioned him as to the bush; how thick it was, etc. At that my men fidgeted uneasily and murmured "Mr. Dawnay." This young Englishman had been killed by buffalo in the bush but four months before. However, two of my men volunteered to follow me, so I set out on the track of the herd.

This bush in which the buffalo live is not more than ten feet high, is composed of a network of branches and is covered with shiny green leaves; it has no thorns. Here and there one will meet with a stunted acacia, which, as if to show its spite against its more attractive neighbors, is clothed with nothing but the sharpest thorns. The buffalo, from constant wandering among the bush, have formed a perfect maze of paths. These trails are wide enough under foot, but meet just over one's shoulders, so that it is impossible to maintain an upright position. The paths run in all directions, and therefore one cannot see far ahead. Were it not for the fact that here and there—often 200 feet apart, however—are small open patches, it would be almost useless to enter such a fastness. These open places lure one on, as from their edges it is often possible to get a good shot. Once started, we took up the path which showed the most and freshest spoor, and, stooping low, pressed on as swiftly and noiselessly as possible. We had not gone far before we came upon a small opening, from the center of which rose an acacia not more than eight inches in thickness of trunk and perhaps eighteen feet high. It was forked at the height of a man's shoulder. I carried the 8-bore, and was glad of an opportunity to rest it in the convenient fork before me. I had just done so, when crash! snort! bellow! came several animals (presumably buffalo) in our direction. One gun-bearer literally flew up the tree against which I rested my rifle; the other, regardless of consequences, hurled his naked skin against another but smaller tree, also thorny; both dropped their rifles. I stood sheltered behind eight inches of acacia wood, with my rifle pointed in front of me and still resting in the fork of the tree. The noise of the herd approached nearer and nearer, and my nerves did not assume that steelly quality I had imagined always resulted from a sudden danger. Fly I could not, and the only tree climbable was already occupied; so I stood still.

Just as I looked for the appearance of the beasts in the little opening in which I stood, the crashing noise separated in two portions—each passing under cover on either side of the opening. I could see nothing, but my ears were filled with the noise. The uproar ceased, and I asked the negro in the tree what had happened. He said, when he first climbed the tree he could see the bushes in our front move like the waves of the sea, and then, Ham del illah—praise be to God—the buffalo turned on either side and left our little opening safe. Had they not turned, but charged straight at us, I fancy I should have had a disagreeable moment. As it was, I began to understand why buffalo shooting in the bush has been always considered unsafe, and began to regret that the road back to the open plain was not a shorter one. We reached it in safety, however, and, after a short rest, set out up wind.

I got a hartbeest and an mpallah before noon, and then, satisfied with my day, returned to camp. By 4 P. M. my men had brought in all the meat, and soon the little camp was filled with strips of fresh meat hanging on ropes of twisted bark. The next day we exchanged the meat for flour, beans, pumpkins and Indian corn. I remained in this camp three more days and then returned to Taveta. Each one of these days I attempted to get a shot at buffalo, but never managed it. On one occasion I caught a glimpse of two of these animals in the open, but they were too wary to allow me to approach them.

When I reached Taveta, I found a capital camp had been built during my absence, and that a food supply had been laid in sufficient for several weeks. Shortly after my arrival I was startled by the reports of many rifles, and soon was delighted to grasp the hands of two compatriots—Dr. Abbott and Mr. Stevens. They had just returned from a shooting journey in Masai land, and reported game plenty and natives not troublesome. My intention was then formed to circumnavigate Mt. Kilimanjaro, pass over the yet untried shooting grounds and then to return to the coast.

I left five men in camp at Taveta in charge of most of my goods, and, taking 118 men with me, set out into Masai land. Even at this late date (1895) the Masai are reckoned dangerous customers. Up to 1889 but five European caravans had entered their territory, and all but the last—that of Dr. Abbott—had reported difficulties with the natives. My head man, a capital fellow, had had no experience with these people, and did not look forward with pleasure to making their acquaintance; but he received orders to prepare for a start with apparent cheerfulness. We carried with us one ton of beans and dried bananas as food supply. This was sufficient for a few weeks, but laid me under the necessity of doing some successful shooting, should I carry out my plan of campaign. Just on the borders of Masai land live the Useri people, who inhabit the northeast slopes of Kilimanjaro. We stopped a day or two with them to increase our food supply, and while the trading was going on I descended to the plain in search of sport.

I left camp at dawn and it was not till noon that I saw game. Then I discovered three rhinos; two together lying down, and one solitary, nearly 500 yards away from the others. The two lying down were nearest me, but were apparently unapproachable, owing to absolute lack of cover. The little plain they had chosen for their nap was as flat as a billiard table and quite bare of grass. The wind blew steadily from them and whispered me to try my luck, so I crawled cautiously toward them. When I got to within 150 yards, one of the beasts rose and sniffed anxiously about and then lay down again. The rhinoceros is nearly blind when in the bright sun—at night it can see like an owl. I kept on, and when within 100 yards rose to my knees and fired one barrel of my .577. The rhinos leapt to their feet and charged straight at me. "Shall I load the other barrel or trust to only one?" This thought ran through my mind, but the speed of the animals' approach gave me no time to reply to it. My gun-bearer was making excellent time across the plain toward a group of trees, so I could make no use of the 8-bore. The beasts came on side by side, increasing their speed and snorting like steam engines as they ran. They were disagreeably close when I fired my second barrel and rose to my feet to bolt to one side. As I rose they swerved to the left and passed not twenty feet from me, apparently blind to my whereabouts. I must have hit one with my second shot, for they were too close to permit a miss. Perhaps that shot turned them. Be that as it may, I felt that I had had a narrow escape.

When these rhinos had quite disappeared, my faithful gun-bearer returned, and smilingly congratulated me on what he considered my good fortune. He then called my attention to the fact that rhinoceros number three was still in sight, and apparently undisturbed by what had happened to his friends. Between the beast and me, stretched an open plain for some 350 yards, then came three or four small trees, and then from these trees rose a semi-circular hill or rather ridge, on the crest of which stood the rhino. I made for the trees, and, distrusting my gun-bearer, took from him the .577 and placed it near one of them. Then, telling him to retire to a comfortable spot, I advanced with my 8-bore up the hill toward my game. The soil was soft as powder, so my footsteps made no noise. Cover, with the exception of a small skeleton bush, but fifty yards below the rhino, there was none. I reached the bush and knelt down behind it. The rhino was standing broadside on, motionless and apparently asleep. I rose and fired, and saw that I had aimed true, when the animal wheeled round and round in his track. I fired again, and he then stood still, facing me. I had one cartridge in my pocket and slipped it in the gun. As I raised the weapon to my shoulder, down the hill came my enemy. His pace was slow and I could see that he limped. The impetus given him by the descent kept him going, and his speed seemed to increase. I fired straight at him and then dropped behind the bush. He still came on and in my direction; so I leapt to my feet, and, losing my head, ran straight away in front of him. I should have run to one side and then up the hill. What was my horror, when pounding away at a good gait, not more than fifty feet in front of the snorting rhino, to find myself hurled to the ground, having twisted my ankle. I thought all was over, when I had the instinct to roll to one side and then scramble to my feet. The beast passed on. When he reached the bottom of the hill his pace slackened to a walk, and I returned to where I had left my .577 and killed him at my leisure. I found the 8-bore bullet had shattered his off hind leg, and that my second shot had penetrated his lungs. I had left the few men I had brought with me on a neighboring hill when I had first caught sight of the rhinos, and now sent for them. Not liking to waste the meat, I sent to camp for twenty porters to carry it back. I reached camp that night at 12:30 A. M., feeling quite worn out.

After a day's rest we marched to Tok-i-Tok, the frontier of Masai land. This place is at certain seasons of the year the pasture ground of one of the worst bands of Masai. I found it nearly deserted. The Masai I met said their brethren were all gone on a war raid, and that this was the only reason why I was permitted to enter the country. I told them that I had come for the purpose of sport, and hoped to kill much game in their country. This, however, did not appear to interest them, as the Masai never eat the flesh of game. Nor do they hunt any, with the exception of buffalo, whose hide they use for shields. I told them I was their friend and hoped for peace; but, on the other hand, was prepared for war should they attack me.

From Tok-i-Tok we marched in a leisurely manner to a place whose name means in English "guinea fowl camp." In this case it was a misnomer, for we were not so fortunate as to see one of these birds during our stay of several days. At this place we were visited by some fifty Masai warriors, who on the receipt of a small present danced and went away. The water at guinea fowl camp consisted of a spring which rises from the sandy soil and flows a few hundred yards, and then disappears into the earth. This is the only drinking-place for several miles, so it is frequented by large numbers and many varieties of game. At one time I have seen hartbeest, wildbeest, grantii, mpallah, Thomson's oryx, giraffes and rhinoceros. We supported the caravan on meat. I used only the .450 Express; but my servant, George Galvin, who used the Winchester, did better execution with his weapon than I with mine.

Here, for the first and last time in my African experiences, we had a drive. Our camp was pitched on a low escarpment, at the bottom of which, and some 300 feet away, lay the water. The escarpment ran east and west, and extended beyond the camp some 500 yards, where it ended abruptly in a cliff forty or fifty feet high. Some of my men, who were at the end of the escarpment gathering wood, came running into camp and said that great numbers of game were coming toward the water. I took my servant and we ran to the end of the escarpment, where a sight thrilling indeed to the sportsman met our eyes. First came two or three hundred wildbeest in a solid mass; then four or five smaller herds, numbering perhaps forty each, of hartbeest; then two herds, one of mpallah and one of grantii. There must have been 500 head in the lot. They were approaching in a slow, hesitating manner, as these antelope always do approach water, especially when going down wind.

Our cover was perfect and the wind blowing steadily in our direction. I decided, knowing that they were making for the water, and to reach it must pass close under where we lay concealed, to allow a certain number of them to pass before we opened fire. This plan worked perfectly. The animals in front slackened pace when they came to within fifty yards of us, and those behind pressed on and mingled with those in front. The effect to the eye was charming. The bright tan-colored skins of the hartbeest shone out in pleasing contrast to the dark gray wildbeest. Had I not been so young, and filled with youth's thirst for blood, I should have been a harmless spectator of this beautiful procession. But this was not to be. On catching sight of the water, the animals quickened their pace, and in a moment nearly half of the mass had passed our hiding-place. A silent signal, and the .450 and the Winchester, fired in quick succession, changed this peaceful scene into one of consternation and slaughter. Startled out of their senses, the beasts at first halted in their tracks, and then wheeling, as if at word of command, they dashed rapidly up wind—those in the rear receiving a second volley as they galloped by. When the dust cleared away, we saw lying on the ground below us four animals—two hartbeest and two wildbeest. I am afraid that many of those who escaped carried away with them proofs of their temerity and our bad marksmanship.

Ngiri, our next camp, is a large swamp, surrounded first by masses of tall cane and then by a beautiful though narrow strip of forest composed of tall acacias. It was at this place, in the thick bush which stretches from the swamp almost to the base of Kilimanjaro, that the Hon. Guy Dawnay, an English sportsman, had met his death by the horns of a buffalo but four months before. My tent was pitched within twenty paces of his grave and just under a large acacia, which serves as his monument, upon whose bark is cut in deep characters the name of the victim and the date of his mishap.

Here we made a strong zariba of thorns, as we had heard we should meet a large force of Masai in this neighborhood. I stopped ten days at Ngiri, and, with the exception of one adventure hardly worth relating, had no difficulty with the Masai. Undoubtedly I was very fortunate in finding the large majority of the Masai warriors, inhabiting the country through which I passed, absent from their homes. But at the same time I venture to think that the ferocity of these people has been much overrated, especially in regard to Europeans; for the force at my disposal was not numerous enough to overawe them had they been evilly disposed.

One morning, after I had been some days at Ngiri, I set out with twenty men to procure meat for the camp. The sun had not yet risen, and I was pursuing my way close to the belt of reeds which surrounds the swamp, when I saw in the dim light a black object standing close to the reeds. My men said it was a hippo, but as I drew nearer I could distinguish the outlines of a gigantic buffalo, broadside on and facing from the swamp. When I got to within what I afterwards found by pacing it off to be 103 paces, I raised my .577 to my shoulder, and, taking careful aim at the brute's shoulder, fired. When the smoke cleared away there was nothing in sight. Knowing the danger of approaching these animals when wounded, I waited until the sun rose, and then cautiously approached the spot. The early rays of the sun witnessed the last breathings of one of the biggest buffaloes ever shot in Africa. Its head is now in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, and, according to the measurement made by Mr. Rowland Ward, Piccadilly, London, it ranks among the first five heads ever set up by him.

After sending the head, skin and meat back to camp, I continued my way along the shore of the swamp. The day had begun well and I hardly hoped for any further sport, but I was pleasantly disappointed.

Toward 11 o'clock I entered a tall acacia forest, and had not proceeded far in it before my steps were arrested by the sight of three elephants, lying down not 100 yards from me. They got our wind at once, and were up and off before I could get a shot. I left all my men but one gun-bearer on the outskirts of the forest and followed upon the trail of the elephant. I had not gone fifteen minutes before I had traversed the forest, and entered the thick and almost impenetrable bush beyond it. And hardly had I forced my way a few paces into this bush, when a sight met my eyes which made me stop and think. Sixty yards away, his head towering above the surrounding bush, stood a monstrous tusker. His trunk was curled over his back in the act of sprinkling dust over his shoulders. His tusks gleamed white and beautiful. He lowered his head, and I could but just see the outline of his skull and the tips of his ears. This time my gun-bearer did not run. The sight of the ivory stirred in him a feeling, which, in a Swahili, often conquers fear—cupidity. I raised some dust in my hand and threw it in the air, to see which way the wind blew. It was favorable. Then beckoning my gun-bearer, I moved forward at a slight angle, so as to come opposite the brute's shoulder. I had gone but a few steps when the bush opened and I got a good sight of his head and shoulder. He was apparently unconscious of our presence and was lazily flapping his ears against his sides. Each time he did this, a cloud of dust arose, and a sound like the tap of a bass drum broke the stillness. I fired my .577 at the outer edge of his ear while it was lying for an instant against his side. A crash of bush, then silence, and no elephant in sight. I began to think that I had been successful, but the sharper senses of the negro enabled him to know the contrary. His teeth chattered, and for a moment he was motionless with terror. Then he pointed silently to his left. I stooped and looked under the bush. Not twenty feet away was a sight which made me share the feelings of my gun-bearer. The elephant was the picture of rage; his forelegs stretched out in front of him, his trunk curled high in the air, and his ears lying back along his neck. I seized my 8-bore and took aim at his foreward knee, but before I could fire, he was at us. I jumped to one side and gave him a two-ounce ball in the shoulder, which apparently decided him on retreat. The bush was so thick that in a moment he was out of sight. I followed him for some time, but saw no more of him. His trail mingled with that of a large herd, which, after remaining together for some time, apparently separated in several directions. The day was blazing hot, and I was in the midst of a pathless bush, far away from my twenty men.

By 2 P. M., I had come up with them again and turned my face toward camp. On the way thither, I killed two zebras, a waterbuck and a Thomsonii. By the time the meat was cut up and packed on my men's heads the sun had set. The moon was magnificently bright and served to light our road. For one mile our way led across a perfectly level plain. This plain was covered with a kind of salt as white as snow, and with the bright moon every object was as easily distinguished as by day. The fresh meat proved an awkward load for my men, and we frequently were forced to stop while one or the other re-arranged the mass he carried. They were very cheery about it, however, and kept shouting to one another how much they would enjoy the morrow's feast. Their shouts were answered by the mocking wails of many hyenas, who hovered on our flanks and rear like a pursuing enemy. I shot two of these beasts, which kept their friends busy for a while, and enabled us to pursue our way in peace.

This white plain reaches nearly to the shores of Ngiri Swamp on the north, and to the east it is bounded by a wall of densely thick bush. We had approached to within 400 yards of the point where the line of bush joins the swamp, when I noticed a small herd of wildbeest walking slowly toward us, coming from the edge of the swamp. A few moments later, a cry escaped from my gun-bearer, who grasped my arm and whispered eagerly, simba. This means lion. He pointed to the wall of bush, and near it, crawling on its belly toward the wildbeest, was the form of a lion. I knelt down and raised the night sight of my .450, and fired at the moving form. The white soil and the bright moon actually enabled me to distinguish the yellow color of its skin. A loud growl answered the report of my rifle, and I could see the white salt of the plain fly as the lion ran round and round in a circle, like a kitten after its tail. I fired my second barrel and the lion disappeared. The wildbeest had made off at the first shot. I tried, in the eagerness of youth, to follow the lion in the bush; but soon common sense came to my rescue, and warned me that in this dark growth the chances were decidedly in favor of the lion's getting me, and so gave up the chase. Now, if I had only waited till the great cat had got one of the wildbeest, I feel pretty sure I should have been able to dispose of it at my leisure. When I returned to camp, I ungratefully lost sight of the good luck I had had, and gnashed my teeth at the thought that I had missed bringing home a lion and an elephant. I was not destined to see a lion again on this journey, but my annoyance at my ill fortune was often whetted by hearing them roar.

However, by good luck and by George's help, I succeeded in securing one elephant. The story of how this happened shall be the last hunting adventure recorded in this article. We had left Ngiri and were camped at the next water, some ten miles to the west. I had been out after giraffes and had not been unsuccessful, and therefore had reached camp in high good humor, when George came to me and said things were going badly in camp—that the men had decided to desert me should I try to push further on into the country; and that both head men seemed to think further progress was useless with the men in such temper. I was puzzled what to do, but wasted no time about making up my mind to do something. I went into the tent and called the two head men to me. After a little delay, they came, greeted me solemnly and at a motion from me crouched on their hams. There is but little use in allowing a negro to state a grievance, particularly if you know it is an imaginary one. The mere act of putting their fancied wrongs into words magnifies them in their own minds, and renders them less likely to listen to reason. My knowledge of Swahili at this time did not permit me to address them in their own language, so I spoke to them in English, knowing that they understood at least a few words of that tongue. I told them that I was determined to push on; that I knew that porters were like sheep and were perfectly under the control of the head men; consequently, should anything happen, I would know on whom to fix the blame. I repeated this several times, and emphasized it with dreadful threats, then motioned for them to leave the tent. I cannot say that I passed a comfortable night. Instead of songs and laughter, an ominous stillness reigned in the camp, and, though my words had been brave, I knew that I was entirely at the mercy of the men.

Before dawn we were under way, keeping a strict watch for any signs of mutiny. But, though the men were sullen, they showed no signs of turning back. Our road lay over a wide plain, everywhere covered thickly with lava, the aspect of which was arid in the extreme.

No more green buffalo bush, no more acacias, tall and beautiful, but in their place rose columns of dust, whirled hither and thither by the vagrant wind. Two of my men had been over this part of the road before, but they professed to be ignorant of the whereabouts of the next water place. Any hesitation on my part would have been the signal for a general retreat, so there was nothing for it but to assume a look of the utmost indifference, and to assure them calmly that we should find water. At noon the appearance of the country had not changed. My men, who had incautiously neglected to fill their water bottles in the morning, were beginning to show signs of distress.

Suddenly my gun-bearer, pointing to the left, showed me two herds of elephants approaching us. The larger herd, composed principally of bulls, was nearer to us, and probably got our wind; for they at once turned sharply to their right and increased their pace. The other herd moved on undisturbed. I halted the caravan, told the men to sit down and went forward to meet the elephants, with my servant and two gun-bearers. I carried a .577, my servant carried the old 12-bore by Lang, his cartridges crammed to the muzzle with powder. We were careful to avoid giving the elephants our wind, so we advanced parallel to them, but in a direction opposite to that in which they were going. As they passed us we crouched, and they seemed unconscious of our presence. They went about 400 yards past us, and then halted at right angles to the route they had been pursuing. There were five elephants in this herd—four large, and one small one, bringing up the rear. Some 60 yards on their right flank was a small skeleton bush, and, making a slight detour, we directed our course toward that. The leading animal was the largest, so I decided to devote our attention to that one. I told George to fire at the leg and I would try for the heart. We fired simultaneously, George missing and my shot taking effect altogether too high.

Two things resulted from the discharge of our rifles: the gun-bearers bolted with their weapons and the elephants charged toward us in line of battle. As far as I can calculate, an elephant at full speed moves 100 yards in about ten seconds, so my readers can judge how much time elapsed before the elephants were upon us. We fired again. My shot did no execution, but George, who had remained in a kneeling position, broke the off foreleg of the leading animal at the knee. It fell, and the others at once stopped. We then made off, and watched from a little distance a most interesting sight.

The condition of the wounded elephant seemed to be known to the others, for they crowded about her and apparently offered her assistance. She placed her trunk on the back of one standing in front of her and raised herself to her feet, assisted by those standing around. They actually moved her for some distance, but soon got tired of their kindly efforts. We fired several shots at them, which only had the effect of making two of the band charge in our direction and then return to their stricken comrade. Cover there was none, and with our bad marksmanship it would have been (to say the least) brutal to blaze away at the gallant little herd. Besides, cries of "water!" "water!" were heard coming from my thirsty caravan. So there was nothing for it but to leave the elephant, take the people to water, if we could find it, and then return and put the wounded animal out of its misery.

An hour and a half later we reached water, beautiful and clear, welling up from the side of a small hill. This is called Masimani. On reaching the water, all signs of discontent among my people vanished, and those among them who were not Mahomedans, and therefore had no scruples about eating elephant meat, raised a cheerful cry of tembo tamu—elephant is sweet. I did not need a second hint, but returned, and, finding the poor elephant deserted by its companions, put it out of its misery. It was a cow with a fine pair of tusks. The sun was setting, and my men, knowing that activity was the only means of saving their beloved elephant meat from hyenas, attacked the body with fury—some with axes, others with knives and one or two with sword bayonets. It was a terrible sight, and I was glad to leave them at it and return to camp, well satisfied with my day's work.

From Masimani, for the next four days, the road had never been trodden by even an Arab caravan. I had no idea of the whereabouts of water, nor had my men; but, having made a success of the first day's march, the men followed me cheerfully, believing me possessed of magic power and certain to lead them over a well-watered path. A kind providence did actually bring us to water each night. The country was so dry that it was absolutely deserted by the inhabitants, the Masai, and great was the surprise of the Kibonoto people when we reached there on the fourth day. They thought that we had dropped from the clouds, and said there could not have been any water over the road we had just come. These Kibonoto people had never been visited by an European, but received us kindly. The people of Kibonoto are the westernmost inhabitants on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.

From there to Taveta our road was an easy one, lying through friendly peoples. After a brief rest at Taveta, I returned to the coast, reaching Zanzibar a little over six months after I had set out from it.

Perhaps a word about the climate of the part of the country through which I passed will not be amiss. Both my servant and myself suffered from fever, but not to any serious extent. If a sedentary life is avoided—and this is an easy matter while on a journey—if one avoids morning dews and evening damps, and protects his head and the back of his neck from the sun, I do not think the climate of East Africa would be hurtful to any ordinarily healthy person. For my part, I do not think either my servant or myself have suffered any permanent ill effects from our venture; and yet the ages of twenty-one and seventeen are not those best suited for travels in the tropics.

W. A. Chanler.

A MOUNTAIN SHEEP.

To the Gulf of Cortez

About a year ago, my brother, who is a very sagacious physician, advised me to take the fresh liver of a mountain sheep for certain nervous symptoms which were troublesome. None of the local druggists could fill the prescription, and so it was decided that I should seek the materials in person. With me went my friend J. B., the pearl of companions, and we began the campaign by outfitting at San Diego, with a view to exploring the resources of the sister republic in the peninsula of Lower California. Lower California is very different from Southern California. The latter is—well, a paradise, or something of that kind, if you believe the inhabitants, of whom I am an humble fraction. The former is what you may please to think.

At San Diego we got a man, a wagon, four mules and the needed provisions and kitchen—all hired at reasonable rates, except the provisions and kitchen, which we bought. Then we tried to get a decent map, but were foiled. The Mexican explorer will find the maps of that country a source of curious interest. Many of them are large and elaborately mounted on cloth, spreading to a great distance when unfolded. The political divisions are marked with a tropical profusion of bright colors, which is very fit. A similar sense of fitness and beauty leads the designer to insert mountain ranges, rivers and towns where they best please the eye, and I have had occasion to consult a map which showed purely ideal rivers flowing across a region where nature had put the divide of the highest range in the State.

My furniture contained a hundred cartridges, a belt I always carry, given by a friend, with a bear's head on the buckle (a belt which has held, before I got it, more fatal bullets than any other west of the Rockies), and my usual rifle. J. B. prepared himself in a similar way, except the belt.

Starting south from San Diego, we crossed the line at Tia Juana, and spent an unhappy day waiting on the custom house officials. They, however, did their duty in a courteous manner, and we, with a bundle of stamped papers, went on. The only duties we paid were those levied on our provisions. The team and wagon were entered free under a prospector's license for thirty days, and an obliging stableman signed the necessary bond.

The main difficulty in traveling in Lower California lies in the fact that you can get no feed for your animals. From Tia Juana east to Tecate, where you find half a dozen hovels, there is hardly a house and not a spear of grass for thirty miles. At Tecate there is a little nibbling. Thence south for twenty-five miles we went to the Agua Hechicera, or witching water; thence east twenty-five miles more to Juarez, always without grass; thence south to the ranch house of the Hansen ranch, at El Rayo, twenty-five miles more. There, at last, was a little grass, but after passing that point we camped at Agua Blanca, and were again without grass for thirty miles to the Trinidad Valley, which once had a little grass, now eaten clean. Fortunately we were able to buy hay at Tia Juana, and took some grain. Fortunately, also, we found some corn for sale at Juarez. So, with constant graining, a little hay and a supply of grass, either absent or contemptible, we managed to pull the stock through.

Besides our four hired mules there was another, belonging to our man, Oscar, which we towed behind to pack later. The animal was small in size, but pulled back from 200 pounds to a ton at every step. Its sex was female, but its name was Lazarus, for the overwhelming necessity of naming animals of the ass tribe either Lazarus or Balaam tramples on all distinctions of mere sex. We started, prepared for a possible, though improbable, season of rain; but we did not count on extreme cold, yet the first night out the water in our bucket froze, and almost every night it froze from a mere skin to several inches thick. To give an idea of the country, I will transcribe from a brief diary a few descriptions. Starting from Tia Juana, we drove or packed for nearly 200 miles in a southeasterly direction, until we finally sighted the Gulf and the mountains of Sonora in the distance. At first our road lay through low mountains, in valleys abounding in cholla cactus. From Tecate southward, the country was rolling and clotted with brushwood, until you reach Juarez. Juarez is an abandoned, or almost abandoned, placer camp. Here, amid the countless pits of the miners, the piñons begin, and then, after a short distance, the pine barrens stretch for forty miles. Beyond again you pass into hills of low brush, and plains covered with sage and buckweed, until finally you cross a divide into the broad basin of the Trinidad Valley. This is a depression some twenty miles long and perhaps five miles wide on the average, with a hot spring and a house at the southwestern end, walled on the southeast by the grim frowning rampart of the San Pedro Martir range, and on the other sides by mountains of lesser height, but equal desolation.

We had intended at first to strike for the Cocopah range, near the mouth of the Colorado River, and there do our hunting. Several reasons induced us to change our plan and make for the Hansen ranch, where deer were said to be plenty and sheep not distant; so we turned from Tecate southward, made one dry camp and one camp near Juarez, and on the fifth day of our journeying reached a long meadow, called the Bajio Largo, on the Hansen ranch. We turned from the road and followed the narrow park-like opening for four miles, camping in high pines, with water near, and enough remnants of grass to amuse the animals. This region of pine barrens occurs at quite an elevation, and the nights were cold. The granite core of the country crops out all along in low broken hills, the intervening mesas consisting of granite sand and gravel, and bearing beside the pines a good deal of brush. Thickets of manzanita twisted their blood-colored trunks over the ground, and the tawny stems of the red-shank covered the country for miles. The red-shank is a lovely shrub, growing about six or eight feet high, with broom-like foliage of a yellowish green, possessing great fragrance. If you simply smell the uncrushed shoots, they give a faint perfume, somewhat suggestive of violets; and if you crush the leaves you get a more pungent odor, sweet and a little smoky. Also, the gnarled roots of the red-shank make an excellent cooking fire, if you can wait a few hours to have them burn to coals. All things considered, the pine barren country is very attractive, and if there were grass, water and game, it would be a fine place for a hunter.

From our camp at Bajio Largo, J. B. and I went hunting for deer, which were said to be plentiful. We hunted from early morning till noon, seeing only one little fellow, about the size of a jack rabbit, scuttle off in the brush. Then we decided to go home. This, however, turned out to be a large business. The lofty trees prevented our getting any extended view, and the stony gulches resembled each other to an annoying degree. At last even the water seemed to flow the wrong way. So we gave up the attempt to identify landmarks, and, following our sense of direction and taking our course from the sun, we finally came again to the long meadow, and, traveling down that, we came to camp. Here we violated all rules by shooting at a mark—our excuse was that we had decided to leave the vicinity without further hunting; and, at all events, we spoiled a sardine box, to Oscar's great admiration.

In order to get a fair day's journey out of a fair day, we had to rise at 4 or 5 o'clock. Oscar once or twice borrowed my watch to wake by, but the result was only that I had to borrow J. B.'s watch to wake Oscar by; so I afterwards retained the timepiece, and got up early enough to start Oscar well on his duties.

The question of fresh meat had now become important. We left Bajio Largo and drove to Hansen's Laguna, a shallow pond over a mile long, much haunted by ducks. Here we made a bad mistake, driving six or eight miles into the mountains, only to reach nowhere and be forced to retrace our steps. Night, however, found us at El Rayo, the Hansen ranch house, and, as it turned out, the real base of our hunting campaign. The Hansen ranch is an extensive tract, named after an old Swede, who brought a few cattle into the country years ago. The cattle multiplied exceedingly, to the number, indeed, of several thousand, and can be seen at long range by the passer-by. They are very wild and gaunt at present, and will prance off among the rocks at a surprising rate before a man can get within 200 yards of them. Ex-Governor Ryerson now owns these cattle, and his major-domo, Don Manuel Murillo, a fine gray-haired veteran, learning that I had known the Governor, gave me much friendly advice, and sent his son to guide us well on the road to the Trinidad Valley and the sheep land. He also provided us with potatoes and fresh meat, so that we lived fatly thenceforth.

Our track lay past an abandoned saw-mill, built by the International Company. Thence we were to go to Agua Blanca, the last water to be had on the road; for the next thirty miles are dry. The saw-mill was built to supply timber to the mining town of Alamo, some twenty-five miles south. The camp is now in an expiring state and needs no timber, but is said to shelter some rough and violent men. The road from the mill was deep in sand, and our pace was slow. The darkness was coming cold and fast when we finally drove on to the water and halted to camp.

Two men were there before us, with a saddle-horse each, and no other apparent equipment. When we arrived, the men were watering their animals, and at once turned their backs, so as not to be recognized. Then they retired to the brush. We supped and staked out the mules, and then sent Oscar to look up our neighbors. Oscar went and shouted, but got no answer, and could find no men. We thought that our mules were in some danger, and J. B., who is a yachtsman, proposed to keep anchor watch. So Oscar remained awake till midnight, when he awoke me and retired freezing, saying that he had seen the enemy prowling around. I took my gun and visited the mules in rotation till 2:30. Then J. B. awoke, chattering with cold, but determined, and kept faithful guard until 5, when we began our day with a water-bucket frozen solid.

All our property remained safe, and a distant fire twinkling in the brush showed that our neighbors were still there. After breakfast Oscar again sought the hostile camp, and finally found a scared and innocent Frenchman, who cried out, on recognizing his visitor:

"Holy Mary! I took you for American robbers from the line, and I have lain awake all night, watching my horses."

From Agua Blanca we drove across the Santa Catarina ranch, for the most part plain and mesa, covered with greasewood and buckbrush. This latter shrub looks much like sage, except that its leaves are of a yellow-green instead of a blue-green. It is said to furnish the chief nutrition for stock on several great ranches. Certainly there was no visible grass, but buckbrush can hardly be fattening. Toward night, we crossed the pass into the Trinidad Valley and drove down a grade not steep only, but sidelong, where the wagons both went tobogganing down and slid rapidly toward the gulch. The mules held well, however, and before dark we were camped near the hot spring at the house of Alvarez.

Our friend, Don Manuel Murillo, had recommended us both to Alvarez and to his sister, Señora Paula, but both of these were absent. Don Manuel had also urged us to get the Indian Anastasio for a guide.

"For heaven's sake," he said, "don't venture without a guide. You may perish from thirst, as others have done before you."

We tried at first to hire burros and let our mules rest, but the Indian who owned the burros stated that his terms were "one burro, one day, one dollar"—an impudent attempt at robbery, which we resented.

We interviewed Anastasio, however, who said he would start at any moment; and, leaving Oscar to guard the wagon, we packed two mules, saddled two more for J. B. and myself, and, giving Anastasio the tow-rope of a pack-mule, we started after him. Anastasio was the most interesting figure of the trip, and I must be pardoned if I go into some detail about him. He spoke some Spanish and understood a good deal. When he did not understand, he never stated that fact, but either assumed a stony look or answered at cross-purposes; so that we did not get to know a great deal about each other for some time.

He had, too, a lingering remnant of the distrust of horses and mules that his ancestors must have felt in Spanish times, and when his pack-mule got a stone in her hoof, he observed it with anxiety from a distance, but could not summon resolution to meddle with so serious a matter.

Moreover his measure of distance was primitive. I would ask, for instance, how many miles it was to our next stop. He might say three miles for an all-day journey of six times that length, or he might tell you that we were nine miles from a spot which we reached in half an hour.

I then substituted leagues for miles, thinking that the Mexican usage would be more familiar to him; but at last Anastasio said, rather impatiently, that all this business of leagues and miles was rather confusing and outside of his experience. We would reach the next water shortly before sunset, and that was all the calculation he was accustomed to, and quite close enough.

Aside from his knowledge of Spanish, Anastasio was indeed a fine representative of the best of the stone age, and as we journeyed on, one got an excellent idea of the life of the savage here in early times. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we reached the only water spot on the trail. Anastasio parted some withered reeds, and, looking earnestly, said, "Dry." A short distance further up, he repeated the word, and yet again, till, at his fourth attempt, he said, "Very little," and we camped. By scraping away the mud and grass, we got a small gravelly hole, and dipped out the slowly seeping water, a cup at a time. We thus managed to give each of the mules a little in a pan, and to get a canteen full for cooking.

Then I noticed Anastasio gathering wood, which I thought at first was for general use, but I found it was a private pile, to be used, so to speak, for bedding. Anastasio did not take the ax to secure his wood, but smashed off mesquite branches with a rock or pulled out some old root. He quite despised piñon and juniper logs, saying they gave no heat—meaning, probably, that they burned out too soon.

We turned in soon after supper, and the night was cold. Anastasio said he feared snow. The reason for his fear was soon evident. My bed was about twenty feet from Anastasio's, and during the night I would turn and watch him. He carried but one small blanket of about the texture of a gunny sack. He lighted a long smouldering fire, stripped himself naked, except a breech-clout, and, with his back to the coals and his front protected by his gauzy blanket, he slept until the cold roused him, when he put on more wood and slept again. I offered him four pairs of warm horse blankets to sleep in, but that was not the thing. He said that he needed to have the fire strike him in the small of the back, and that he slept in that way always. So throughout the night, in my wakeful moments, I saw the light reflected from his mahogany person. Evidently snow or cold rain would be disastrous to people who need a fire all night; for, with no covering against the cold and with fires extinguished by storm, they might easily freeze to death.

We were packed and marching at 7:30 next morning, and to those who know the inwardness of packing in winter, that statement means a good deal. It means, for instance, that J. B. got up, at my summons, long before dawn and cooked a splendid breakfast, and that the mules were caught and grained and saddled, and the packs made and lashed, by the earliest sun.

J. B. was a wonder. He seemed to enjoy giving his fellow mortals the best breakfasts and suppers—for we never had any midday meals—that our supplies could furnish. Always rising at the first call, in the dark, sometimes with an accompaniment of snow or rain, he managed the commissariat to perfection.

I in my humble way packed and saddled and did other necessary work, and Anastasio regarded us with benevolent curiosity, though always ready to get wood or water or mules when we asked him to do so.

We were now approaching the true desert. This term is not restricted to the broad level sand wastes along the Gulf, but includes the arid and waterless mountains adjacent, and this must be borne in mind when the Mexicans tell you that sheep are to be found in the desert.

We passed the last of the brushy hills, and, crossing a small divide, came over slopes of volcanic cinders to a little water spot with dwarf willows and grass. This was our hunting camp. The country through which our route had lain heretofore was altogether granitic, though one could see hills apparently of stratified material in the distance. Toward the desert, we met beds of conglomerate and trachyte, and mountains covered with slide-rock, ringing flint-like clinkers from some great volcanic furnace. But doubtless some accurate and industrious German has described all this, in a work on the geology of the peninsula, and to that valuable treatise I will refer you for further facts.

The vegetation had somewhat changed. There were more cactuses, particularly the fleshy kind called venaga, though I noticed with surprise the absence of the great fruit-bearing cactuses, the saguarro and pitaya, all along our route. The Spanish daggers were very numerous, as were also mescal plants, both of these forming veritable thickets in places.

The venaga cactus is similar to the bisnaga, found in other parts of Mexico, except in the disposition and curvature of the thorns. They are stumpy plants, growing from a foot to three feet or so in height, and a foot or more in diameter, like a thickset post. Those of us who delighted in Mayne Reid's "Boy Hunters" will remember how the adventurous young men saved themselves from dying of thirst by laying open these succulent cactuses with their long hunting knives and drinking the abundant juices. I have often and faithfully tried to perform the same feat, out of reverence for my heroes, but failed to find anything juicier than, say, a raw turnip—by no means satisfying as a drink. The venagas are found on the mountains where sheep haunt, with their hard prickly rinds broken and the interior hollowed out, and Anastasio said that the sheep do this by knocking holes in the cactus with their horns and then eating the inside.

This cactus country makes the third variety of wilderness encountered in the peninsula. There are four:

first, and best, the pine barrens; second, the brushy hills and plains, covered with sage, greasewood and buckweed; third, this spike-bearing volcanic region; and fourth, the appalling desolation of the acknowledged desert.

The moment we had unloaded and watered our animals, Anastasio and I set out to look for deer. Anastasio wore the spotted and tattered remnant of a frock-coat, once green, given him by an Englishman, of whom I shall say more later. He had guarachis, or sandals, on his feet, bare legs, a breech-clout, and on his head a reddish bandanna handkerchief in the last stages of decay; and as he peered over some rock, glaring long and earnestly in search of game, he reminded one of those lean and wolfish Apaches that Remington draws in a way so dramatic and so full of grim significance.

Anastasio was fifty-one years old and had no upper incisors, but the way he flung his gaunt leathern shanks over those mountains of volcanic clinkers, armed with the poisoned bayonets of myriads of mescal, cactus and Spanish dagger, was astonishing.

I told him that I was not racing and that he would scare the game. In fact, he did start one little fellow, but he said he always saw the game first, and for this day I was quite powerless to hold him in; so I decided to return to camp before dark. This disgusted Anastasio greatly. "In this way we shall never kill," said he. "We are going to suffer from hunger." I assured him that we had plentiful supplies, but he had come for meat. Unbounded meat had been the chief incentive for his trip, and hungry he was determined to be.

The next day J. B. set out early with the red man. I arranged camp, and two or three hours later took what I supposed was a different direction, but soon encountered the pair returning. J. B. had a painful knee, and Anastasio had started his racing tactics and kept them up until J. B. was quite lame.

The Indian reported that he had seen sheep. J. B. had used the glass without finding them, and then Anastasio had captured it and looked through the wrong end, nodding and saying he could count five, very big. This, I am sorry to say, was false and affected on Anastasio's part, and J. B. was skeptical about the sheep altogether; but I knew how hard it was to find distant game, when you don't know exactly how it should appear. To reach the supposed sheep, the mountain must be climbed and the crest turned, for the wind permitted no other course. J. B. did not feel up to the task, and I directed him to camp. Anastasio and I climbed for about four hours, and reached a position whence his sheep would be visible. He was now discontented because J. B. had not lent him his gun. No request had been made for the gun, to be sure, but I confess that a request would have met with my earnest opposition in any event. Evidently Anastasio's expectations of fresh meat were now so dim as to cast serious shadows on my skill as a hunter; but, resigning himself to the inevitable, he crawled to the summit of the ridge for a view. He stared long and said he could make out one ewe lying down under a juniper. I tried the glass. He was right. His unaided sight seemed about equal in definition to my field-glass. On this occasion he declined to use the glass, even with some appearance of disgust. We could get no nearer unseen, and, though the distance was very great, I decided to risk a shot.

I fired, in fact, two or three shots at the ewe, alarming her greatly, when from beneath a cliff which lay below us a band streamed out. Two big rams started off to the right. Anastasio and I ran down a bit, and I tried a long shot at the leading ram. The distance was great, and the run had pumped me a little. I missed. The second ram was still larger. He stopped a moment at 150 yards and I dropped him. Anastasio grunted satisfaction. I swung to the left, where the rest of the band was journeying, sighted at the shoulder of a young ram and fired. The ball passed through my intended victim, dropping him, and entered the eye of a yearling ram who stood behind, thus killing two rams at one shot—a most unusual accident.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN AND POLO'S SHEEP, DRAWN TO SAME SCALE.

The rest of the band were now quite distant, and, though I fired several shots, at Anastasio's desire—he said he wanted a fat ewe—none took effect.

I cleaned the sheep and skinned out the big head. Anastasio took one small ram entire on his back, supporting it by a rope passed over the top of his head, and started down with it, while I followed after with the big horns. It was 1 o'clock. The head might have weighed thirty-five pounds fresh. It grew to weigh 1,500 pounds before dark. Stumbling down through the slide-rock, with legs full of venomous prickers, I passed below camp without noticing it, and was well on the other side, when I thought I had gone about far enough, and shouted. J. B.'s voice answered across a small hill, and I discovered that he had never reached camp at all, but had found a water spot, and wisely decided not to leave it without good reason.

I scouted a bit to the west, but found unfamiliar country, and, as the sun had set, we were seemingly about to stay by that water all night, when I turned around and saw a pale column of smoke rising above the crest of the ridge against the evening sky.

At once we marched around the ridge, and, as we rose over the divide, we saw the whole hillside flaming with signal fires. Our dear old Anastasio had become alarmed and set fire to fifteen or twenty dead mescals in different places to guide us home. God bless a good Indian!

With vast content we prepared and ate a luxurious supper. Anastasio, however, fearing that he might be hungry in the night, impaled all the ribs of one side of the ram on a pole and planted it in a slanting position over the fire. Thus he was enabled to put in his time during his wakeful moments, and face the prospect of a remote breakfast without discouragement.

The next day, I spent the morning in washing, resting, and cutting spikes out of my legs. Anastasio packed in the second small ram, and ate ribs and slept. Then, in the afternoon, we got the rest of the big fellow down. Anastasio, to make his load lighter, smashed off the shanks with a stone, although he carried a knife in his belt—a striking trick of heredity.

And then we talked. "The Trinidad Valley is not my country," said Anastasio; "this is my country. Yonder, under that red rock on the mountain side, about five miles away, there is a spring in the gulch on the edge of the desert. I was born there, and lived there twenty years with my father's family. Here where your camp is"—about twenty feet square of slide-rock level enough to stand on—"we sowed crops. We scraped a hole between the stones with our hands, put in squash seeds, watered them by carrying water from the spring in our hands and raised several hills."

So he went on, not in so connected a way, but showing, bit by bit, his manner of life. His tribe, which he called the Kil-ee-ou, must have been very restricted in numbers at best. His territory was a few leagues of desert, or almost desert, mountains, every yard of which he knew by heart, while just over the ridge dwelt the Cocopahs, his mortal enemies. Sometimes a score of men armed with bows would start a tribal hunt for deer, though the sheep were beyond their means of attack. Sometimes they journeyed a few leagues to the Gulf to eat mussels. We could see the great blue sheet and the leagues of salt incrustations glimmering white on the hither side, and at one spot on the horizon the blue peak of some Sonora mountain rose out of the seeming ocean.

But a few deer and mussels and a half dozen hills of squashes could not fill the abyss of the Indian appetite. The stand-by was roasted mescal. These plants grow in great numbers in the country adjoining the desert, and at every season there are some just right for roasting. The Indians selected these and cooked them for two or three days in a hole in the ground, by a process called tatema, similar in principle to a clam-bake. This roasting converts the starchy leaves and heart into a sugary mass, so that the resulting food is something like a sweet fibrous beet. The Indian's life really lay in gathering and roasting mescal. And when a storm prevented the necessary fires, the tribe passed days, often many days, without food.

So much for Anastasio's early life. A year ago, he told us, he went hunting with two Americans. One of them came from under the earth, where there were six months of night, and had passed two seas and been a month on the train. We supposed, from this, that Anastasio had served as guide to an Englishman, whose home he described at the Antipodes. The six months of night were, perhaps, represented by the London fogs, and, if he passed a month on the train, he must have come by the Southern Pacific. The Englishman had presented Anastasio with the very undesirable gaberdine I have before described. Anastasio said that the Englishman shot quail in the head every time with his rifle, but on meeting a band of eleven sheep he fired nine shots without hitting. Anastasio said he trembled, but I incline to think that the Indian had run him out of breath. Finally the Englishman secured two ewes and a lamb, after three weeks of hunting.

Look at my fortune! A single day on the mountain, and three rams to show for it; one with horns that are an abiding splendor—sixteen inches around the base and forty-two inches on the outer sweep.

I thought at first that the horns made more than one complete spiral, but, on leveling them carefully, I saw that the entire curve would not be complete without the points, which were smashed off. In this connection it is only fair to consider that I carried my lucky bear's head belt, and invariably sacrificed to the Sun, as several ragged garments, hung on spikes and branches, may still testify.

The weather threatened storm. J. B.'s leg would not permit him to hunt. Anastasio was full of meat, eating roasted ribs night and day, beside his regular meals, and we decided to retreat.

I noticed that the sheep hides had little of the under wool that the Northern sheep have in December, nor were the animals fat, though the flesh was sweet and tender, and the livers had their desired medicinal effect.

Anastasio said it was customary to hunt in summer, when the sheep were fat, and were compelled to resort to the water holes. Aside from the meanness of taking advantage of the animals' necessities, the summer is a bad season for hunting, both because the flesh is rank and spoils quickly, and the heat and insects are intolerable.

We packed our mules in a gentle rain, and Anastasio made a great bundle of rejected meat for his own use. To get rope, he slightly roasted the leaves of the Spanish dagger, tore the hot spikes in shreds with his tough fingers and knotted the fragments into a strong, pliable cord.

In two days we were again in the Trinidad Valley, and in two days more—one of them passed in facing a cold, driving storm, of great violence—we had reached our old friend, Don Manuel Murillo, at El Rayo. Here we lay over a day to rest the animals, and Don Manuel again played the part of a good angel in letting us have some hay.

I tried a shot at a duck on a little pond. The shot was a costly success. The duck died, but I had to wade for his remains through many yards of frozen mud and dirty water. The duck, though lean, was tender. My last hunt was for deer at El Rayo, with a boy of Don Manuel's for guide. Toward noon I saw two deer and shot them. I do not at present know just how to class them. The tail is that of the ordinary mule-deer, or blacktail, of Colorado and Montana, but there is no white patch on the rump.

The most of the deer in Lower, as well as in Southern, California have little white on their rumps, as in these specimens, but the upper surface of the tail is generally dark. The majority of the animals also are smaller than the typical mule-deer of our Northern States, but whether the differences between the two are great enough and constant enough to form a defined variety, some more competent naturalist must decide. Pending authoritative decision, I will submit, as a working theory of a purely amateur kind, this suggestion: that the Mexicans are right in saying that the northern zone of their country contains two varieties of deer—one a large animal, called "buro," identical with our Northern mule-deer; the other called "venado," a mule-deer too, but only a cousin of the "buro," much smaller, and with the white parts of the mask, throat, rump and tail either absent or much diminished in extent.

Our journey home was accomplished in the worst weather. Snow, cold rain, gales of surprising fury, made life a struggle; but we jumped at every chance for progress, and finally crossed the line twenty-five days after we had left it—tired, ragged, dirty, but with our mules alive and our hearts contented.

Our experience of the peninsula indicated that there were few inhabitants of any kind, brute or human. We saw hardly a dozen rabbits on the trip. There were some quail and many ducks, but the latter were visitors only. Deer were very scarce, and there were but a few half-wild cattle visible.

As for human beings, there was not an inhabited house on our road from Alvarez Place, in the Trinidad Valley, to El Rayo, a distance of fifty-five miles; nor from El Rayo to Juarez, twenty-five miles more. Indeed, except for the few hovels at Tecate, the houses for the rest of the way were hardly more numerous. And yet we had a strong impression that the country had nearly all the population it could support. Given a moderately dry year, and the part of Lower California which we visited can be thought fit only for bogus land companies and goose-egg mines; or, yes, it might be an ideal spot for a health resort or a penal colony.

George H. Gould.

A Canadian Moose Hunt

In October, 1893, I made an extended trip with my brother into the country around the head waters of the Ottawa. Our original plan, to push northward toward the "Height of Land" after caribou, was frustrated by high winds, which made travel on the large lakes slow and dangerous. The crossing of a ten-mile lake, which could be accomplished in a morning if calm, would consume several days with a high wind blowing, necessitating a tedious coasting on the windward shore. After much delay from this cause and from heavy rains, which made hunting difficult in the extreme, we at length abandoned the hope of caribou on this trip, and turned southward from Birch Lake into Lake Kwingwishe—the Indian name for meat bird. This was about the northern limit of moose, although a few are found beyond it.

Our repeated failures to see this great deer would not form interesting reading, although, if recorded, they would, no doubt, bring to the mind of many a moose hunter memories of times when the hunt was hard and the result—a blank. It is my purpose in this article to merely sketch one or two instances of this sort, which, in contrast to days of unrewarded watching, were red-lettered with excitement. I only give the episodes because too often we relate our victories alone, and missed shots and barren tramps are consigned to ill-merited oblivion, however real they were.

A MOOSE OF THE UPPER OTTAWA.

After hunting the country around Lake Kwingwishe, we at length camped on a small pond near the east shore. Here we watched and called every night and morning; then we visited neighboring swamps and ponds, carrying a canoe through the forest by compass. It was always the same—wet and hungry, tired out with tramping through tamarack swamps, we would call half the night, sometimes startled with false alarms from hoot owl or loon, and then lie down in a rain-soaked tent without a fire, for smoke always scares a moose. The first streaks of dawn came, and again we were up and anxiously watching the shore for the appearance of the monster we were after. There were his tracks a few hours old but we could never catch him making them. It was too early in the season to trail them down, as the bulls were traveling continuously in impenetrable swamps, and our best chance was to run across them on the waterways.

One morning, on a pond we had named "Little Trout Pond," because it looked as though it should have trout in it, but did not; we awoke, after some specially exhausting and disappointing "back pond" expeditions, and found Chabot, one of our two Indian guides, gone. Late in the afternoon he returned. He had been seeing the country, and had found a swamp about three miles off full of fresh tracks, "so big moose," and he described tracks such as must have belonged to the Irish elk. Soon after sunrise on the following day we were there. Cold lunch, no dinner and lots of beautiful fresh tracks, one the largest I ever saw.

We watched motionless all day, saw the sun cross the zenith and sink out of sight, saw the twilight fade away and the moon come up. About midnight we went back to camp, through the woods. Night travel in a forest that you can scarcely get through in the daytime is beyond description.

"So good swamp," said Chabot sadly that night as he crawled into his tent.

The next day we pitched a rough camp on a hogback between two barren plains, about five miles from our main camp. It rained hard as soon as we got the tent up, and we watched a runway at the foot of the hill until dark and then turned in.

The next morning it rained so heavily that we lay in our tent, four of us, until about 11 A. M., when it slacked up a little. My diary says, "No fire and little breakfast." Before this "little breakfast" was finished we heard a moose call close by. Seizing our rifles, we started with Chabot to stalk him. The brevity of a diary is sometimes eloquent. Mine says, "Walked from 12 M. to 4.30 P. M. through the bush. Didn't hear that moose again."

The latter hour found us back in camp to get breakfast, when our other guide, Jocko, who had gone to the main camp for food, came back in great excitement, having found some fresh signs close at hand. Breakfast was dropped and again we started. We got back just after dark from that trip and ate—for the first time that day—some cold partridge and pork.

This was a fair sample of our hunting day, but did not equal the following one. It rained all that night, and the tent, not having been properly stretched, leaked. We were awakened by the crackling of a fire the guides had made. It was direct disobedience of orders, and contrary to the most elementary rules of moose hunting; but, cold and faint for want of food, we yielded to the innate perversity of the Indian. We made a wild-eyed, starved group, warming our fingers around the little blaze as it snapped up through the still, wet morning air. The teapot was just beginning to boil, the pork was just sizzling, when we sprang to our feet. A crash of antlers, as though two bulls were fighting, sounded not a hundred yards away. The noise was perfectly clear, having a metallic ring to it, and was caused by moose horns striking a hard substance.

Again. Without a word, we seized our rifles, and left our breakfast and fire, and I never saw that spot afterward. Again came the sound, still distinct, but further off, this time like a birch canoe dragged through alders. The animal had been on the runway which crossed at the foot of the hill we were camped on when he scented the fresh-lit fire. Well, to make a long story short, we followed that trail three weary hours of running and creeping through frightful swamps and thickets, hearing every few minutes the sound just ahead of us, but with never a sight of the game. His huge tracks, which we crossed now and again, showed he was not even trotting. Nearly exhausted, we kept following the sound directly, and so cutting across and gaining on him. Once he seemed just ahead, and we expected to see him each second; but we had to pay for the luxury of that fire, as for other good things in life, so we never saw a hair of him. When, at last, completely used up, we burst out on a lake and saw the muddy tracks and the water still "riled up" where he had crossed, Jocko swore he heard him crash up the opposite bank; but we were at the end of our strength and could go no further. A man must eat sometimes, even on a moose hunt.

Now comes the really tragical part of this episode; our canoe was not twenty feet from where this perverse animal had entered the water, and we were on the little pond where our permanent camp stood. Still we felt encouraged, for, as Chabot said that night, "Hear him now, see him pretty soon." But not for many days.

One more sample to encourage would-be moose hunters, and then we will kill a moose just to show how easy it is. Two nights after the above adventure we changed our camp and the weather at the same time. It was clear now, but it grew very cold, and made night work in the canoe a horror.

It was my brother's turn to call, and I was just dropping off to sleep in my tent, within a few feet of the lake shore, when from the other side of the water, about a quarter of a mile distant, a bull moose called. On the cold, still air it rang out like a trumpet—a long call, very different from the call made by Indian hunters. Jocko, who was with me in camp, was frantic with excitement, especially as my brother, who must have heard it, did not answer. Again the call sounded. The bull must be on the shore. I thought he might swim over. Then came the answering call, close at hand, of a cow. Jocko laughed and whispered, "Chabot call him." Then there was silence for a few minutes, followed by a final bellow, evidently further off. The mock cow bawled and screamed and bleated frantically, but no sound came back. My brother and his man kept it up until late that night, and then came to the camp almost frozen. That incident ruined my faith in calling, for every condition of wind and weather was perfect, and Chabot's calling apparently most enticing.

After this and similar episodes, we left the Kwingwishe country, after hunting it carefully as far north as Sassanega Lake. We passed Sair's Lake and the Bois Franc, and finally reached the Little Beauchene. Near the last lake my brother killed a young bull moose, whose meat was the first fresh food, except partridge, we had had for over three weeks. It was delicious, and we felt the change of diet at once in increased strength and energy. For continuous use moose meat is much superior to other venison, as it is of a rich flavor which does not readily pall on the taste. The myth about moose muffle being such a hunters' delicacy has never allured me to actually eat it, but I suppose a starving man might, after consuming his boots, manage to swallow it.

There were many fresh signs in the neighborhood of the Little Beauchene Lake, but some lumbermen had arrived a few days before us and had scared the game away. This starting the quarry is the real difficulty in moose hunting; for, when once disturbed, the bull leaves with all his kith and kin, so the only chance in these regions is to find him immediately on arrival in a new district and before he comes across your tracks.

Still working slowly southward, we hunted more back ponds, until at last my turn came on the twenty-seventh hunting day. Let no man say that moose hunting is a picnic.

We had camped on a little strip of land, between a pond and a long narrow swamp, about 4 o'clock on a beautiful afternoon. Leaving my brother and Jocko to eat dinner in comfort, I started to the head of the swamp. The water was so low that we could barely force the light canoe through the lily-pads. Old moose signs were plenty. A family of moose had evidently been there all summer, but until we reached the upper end we saw no fresh tracks. The sluggish stream we were on drained a shallow lake, and, after a few hard plunges, our canoe floated clear of the mud into the silent waters of a circular pond. It was a basin about a half mile across, surrounded by low hardwood hills, and so shallow that a moose, I think, could have waded across the deepest part. The shores were marked up with some very large tracks, but fresh signs had long since ceased to excite in me anything more than a passing interest. We made the tour of the lake slowly and quietly. Nothing was in sight except four wood ducks. This was "last chance" pond, and if I got no moose here, we must return to Mattawa for another outfit, which I had about made up my mind to do. The night settled still and cold—oh, so cold!—and the stars came out with wonderful distinctness.

What was that?

Chabot had started up, listened, and a second later was driving the birch across the lake noiselessly. As we neared the shore, it was inky black—a mammoth would not have been visible ten yards away. Twigs breaking at long intervals told that something was on shore just in cover of the bushes. We waited some time and at last I whispered to Chabot, "Muckwa?" (bear).

"Not muckwa—cow," answered the guide.

As he spoke, the short call of a bull floated out on the cold air from the side of the pond that we had just left. I think Chabot was right about the cow being in the bushes, but he may have been mistaken—one's hearing becomes unnaturally sensitive after a few weeks' continuous straining to catch and distinguish the most distant sounds. But there was no mistake about that bull's call. He was well back from the shore on the hillside. The wind was wrong, and, although he grunted at intervals for an hour, he paid no attention to Chabot's most seductive pleadings. We imitated with paddles the splashings of a cow walking in the shallow water, but this and other devices had no effect. When at last even my Indian could no longer bear the bitter cold of the wind which had sprung up, we started for camp. Long past midnight we crawled into our blankets, and I dropped asleep cursing the day I had first gone after moose.

We were on that pond again before daylight. Not a sound to be heard, not a living thing to be seen, when the sun rose. We took our stand on a small point opposite the outlet and watched. I sat on a fallen tree motionless, hour after hour. Chabot dozed beside me. Those four ducks played and fed within thirty feet, and a muskrat worked at house-building a few yards away. The silence was intense. There was not a breath of wind. I knew my brother was doing the same thing on a neighboring pond, and I fell to thinking whether there was some special Nemesis about this hunt, or it was the fault of the guides. I glanced at the outlet in front of me, about a half mile distant.

There was a moose, stalking with the utmost deliberation along the edge of the woods and then into the shallow water.

Chabot was roused by a hasty shake, and a second later the canoe was flying across the lake. As we crossed, I inspected the moose closely. He was walking slowly, nibbling the long reed-like grass that stuck up from the water. His neck seemed very stiff, and he swung his legs from his hips and shoulders. The hump was extremely conspicuous, perhaps because his head was carried low to get at the grass. He was a young bull, nearly full grown, and with small antlers. He looked occasionally at the canoe, now fast nearing him; but we had the advantage of the wind, and the sun was going down behind us. It was just 5 o'clock. He walked, now out toward us, now back to shore, as though about to bolt for the bush, but working slowly toward the north, where we afterwards found a much-used runway, leading to the marsh my brother was watching, two miles away. I opened fire about fifty yards off, when the moose was standing in about a foot of water, looking suspiciously at us. The shot was too high, but struck him in the shoulder. He started in a lumbering gallop along the shore. I fired again. This turned him into the woods at an old lumber road. We heard the twigs snap sharply for a minute, and then a heavy crash and silence. I thought we had lost him, but Chabot declared that he was down. I sprang ashore the moment the canoe grounded, and dashed in on his trail, which was perfectly clear on the soft moss. Looking ahead through the open woods for the animal, which I thought had turned, I almost fell over his prostrate body.

His head rested against a small windfall, which he had tried to clear—an effort which appeared to have cost him his life. Moss hung from some small spruce trees close by, which had been kicked up in the death struggle. The shoulder shot had been the fatal one, but he had been hard hit in the side too.

He was not full grown, and measured only 5 feet 6-1/2 inches in height, and 8 feet 3-1/4 inches in length, from the nose to root of tail. His girth at the shoulder was 5 feet 11-1/4 inches. His nose showed none of the Jewish characteristics which taxidermists are fond of giving their mounted moose heads. The forehead and shoulders were brownish instead of black, like the rest of the body. The hindlegs were wholly white, as were the forelegs below the knee. I am inclined to think he was a ranger moose, but could not tell with certainty, as his horns were too undeveloped. The velvet was still hanging in places, but very dry. This was unusual, as it was the 10th of October.

Ordering Chabot to dress the moose, I went back to the canoe, having decided to watch until dark, although there seemed no possibility of seeing another moose after the firing. My lazy guide, instead of obeying my order, merely cut the skin, with the result that all the meat spoiled—probably just what he wanted, fearing he would have to portage it out of the bush. We returned to our point and dozed again. At a quarter of 7 it was getting dark fast, and in the north a black, ugly-looking cloud was gathering. We might as well go back to camp if it was going to blow and rain, so I told Chabot to shove off and to give one last toot of his horn, just for luck.

The air was still as death with the dread of the impending storm. Chabot took up the coiled birch, and the echoes rang out with a short grunting call, which so much resembles a man chopping wood. Before they died away, there came from behind us, just to our right, the unmistakable answering grunt of a bull moose. He was probably on his way to the lake, and our call merely hastened him and brought him out into the open before it was too dark to shoot. He was very near and came steadily forward, stopping now and then to listen. We could hear him plainly as his horns broke the twigs at every step—once or twice he lashed the bushes with them. He repeated his grunts, ungh! ungh! every few steps. He was so evidently reckless that, to take no chance, I allowed Chabot to answer only once—with the short call. I say short call, in distinction to the long modulated call which is used to good purpose in Maine and New Brunswick, but which I have never known to succeed in this part of Canada. The moose paused for a moment in the alders that formed a close thicket at the water's edge, and I feared he had seen or scented us; then suddenly and noiselessly he stepped out from a cove a short hundred yards away. He had taken less than ten minutes from the first call to his appearance.

At the first alarm we had pushed off and were floating quietly just by the shore. The water was so shallow that the birch made, to my ears at least, a frightful scraping as it pushed over the dead sticks that lay in the water, and the wind was unfavorable. I never shall forget the appearance that bull made as he stepped fiercely and proudly out, with his head up, swinging a splendid set of antlers as lightly as straws. He did not see us, but strode about ten yards into the shallow lake, where the water scarcely covered his hoofs, and, first glancing away for a second, turned like a flash and faced us full, looking down on us in surprised disgust. He was greatly excited and the mane on his hump was erect, increasing his natural height, and there was nothing timid or deer-like in his appearance. I have seen in the arena a bull step out from the darkened stall into the glare of sunlight, and gaze for a moment at the picadors with a sort of indignant surprise; so this great bull moose looked.

We gazed motionless at each other, I knowing that it was one of the grandest and rarest sights on the American continent, and he thinking, no doubt, what a disgraceful imitation of a cow the motionless canoe made. Chabot's breath was coming hard behind me, and I felt the birch bark quiver.

As I raised my rifle, I realized that it had suddenly grown very dark under this western bank, and the bull precisely resembled in color the background, and, large as he was, made a very poor mark. The tall grass, which I had looked over in watching him, now sticking up in front of the sights, bothered me. I fired at the root of his neck, and the rifle gave a suppressed roar in the heavy air and the smoke hung like a pall. The bull ran straight forward, hesitated as though about to charge, then turned and made wonderful speed along the lake shore. The moment I could see him I fired again. In the dim twilight he was almost out of sight. When the smoke cleared he was gone.

Neither of us moved. It was too frightful to miss such an immense creature at that range. We heard him crash up the hillside and then stop a short distance back in the wood. Then I knew he either was down or had turned, unless he had found an open lumber road, where his horns would make no sound; for a moose can go in the most mysterious manner when he chooses to be quiet—but there was nothing quiet about this bull.

Chabot declared that he had heard him cough, but I did not believe it. I pointed to the spot where he had entered the bush, and a moment later the canoe grated on the beach. There were the huge tracks with the hoofs wide spread, and the trail entering an old lumber road.

All this took less time to happen than to read, and yet it was now dark, so quickly had night fallen. By straining my eyes I saw it was 7 o'clock—just two hours after the first bull was killed. Chabot wanted to go back to camp, which was the proper thing to do, especially as I had now just one cartridge left. I had only taken a handful with me that morning.

We entered the forest foot by foot, Chabot following the trail where I could scarcely see to step. A few yards in and the track turned from the old road into the thick bush, and we knew the moose was near. A little further, and we scarcely moved—stepping like cats from tree to tree, expecting every second to hear an angry grunt and have the bull emerge from the impenetrable veil of night that hung around us.

At last we came to a windfall, and we were for some time at a loss to find whether he had gone across or around it. In lighting a match with extreme caution, the light fell on a tall moose wood stem about as large as one's finger. Four feet from the ground it was dripping with bright red blood. The coughing Chabot had heard was now, we thought, explained, and the game hard hit. We decided to go back to camp; for, as my guide put it very clearly, the wounded bull would either fight or run. I wasn't anxious for the first alternative in the dark and tangled wood, with one cartridge; and the second meant a long chase on the morrow. If we left him until the morning, he would be either dead or too stiff from his wound to go far.

So back we went to camp, amply repaid by the events of two hours for weeks of hardship and exposure. Just at daylight the next morning, as we were leaving camp, prepared to take and keep the trail of that bull if it led to Hudson Bay, my brother appeared with Jocko. He had had no breakfast, and had come a long distance through a frightful bush in order to be in at the death, as he had heard the firing, and shrewdly suspected that in the dusk a wounded moose was the result.

"From the tracks at my lake," said he, as he strode up to the fire, "there are two bull moose around here—a large and a small one; which did you get?"

"Both," replied Chabot.

We took the trail at the water's edge, and found it smeared with blood. The bull could not have gone far. A short walk brought us to the windfall where we had turned back the night before, and which had seemed so deep in the woods.

A hundred yards beyond it lay the bull on his right side. The second shot had struck him in the center of the left ham and ranged through him. The meat was spoiled, as was the hide—that is, the hair came out so badly that it was not worth while to prepare it; but the neck and scalp were perfect, except a bad scar on the forehead, received in fighting.

He was a grand sight as he lay dead in that silent autumn forest—for I never can get over the impression that somehow or other the moose is a survival of a long past order of nature, a fit comrade for the mammoth and the cave bear. He was short and thickset, with immense chest power—probably a swamp moose. The neck was short and stout, and he had a Jewish cast of nose. No bell—merely the common dewlap. He measured at the shoulder 6 feet 6 inches; 9 feet 8-1/2 inches from nose to tip of tail; girth at shoulders, 6 feet 2-1/2 inches. We skinned and decapitated the moose, one after the other. The meat of both was completely spoiled, and it seemed wicked to leave those two huge carcasses to the bears and wolves; but there was no help for it, so we started for Mattawa. I doubt if we could have carried out any of the meat if we had tried, for we had to throw away everything not absolutely necessary on the long portages that followed. At last we reached Rosiceau's, on Snake Lake, and, with the welcome the old man gave us, felt quite at home once more. Then passing by the scenes of a former hunt, we reached Fort Eddy, an old Hudson Bay post, and then the Ottawa River. We ran the Cave rapids, and at sundown on a beautiful day the town of Mattawa swung in sight, and the hunt was over.

The country we had traversed contained little except bears and moose. We saw a few caribou tracks, and brought home with us a curious caribou antler, which we found in the woods.

The fur animals have, within the last five years, been exterminated, and the very few beaver that survive have abandoned their old habits, and live in holes in the banks of the larger streams. We found traces of one of these bank beaver, but he was probably traveling and we could not catch him. A few mink were shot, but the country is completely stripped of everything else of value. If the present law, prohibiting the trapping of otter and beaver, can be enforced, perhaps the land may be restocked, but it will take years. It is fit for nothing except fur and timber, and, with efficient game wardens, could be made to produce a large return from these sources. Partridges and loons abounded, but ducks were seldom seen.

The lakes form a complete system of communication by means of easy portages, but there are no streams that contain trout and no springs to supply drinking water. This lack of fresh water caused us considerable suffering, as the lake water is supposed to be dangerous, and a pail of spring water, which we got at the start, was carried for days over portages as our most precious baggage. We did not see a sign of a brook trout during the entire trip, and I do not believe that there were any in the waters we traversed. There may have been lake trout, but our trolling produced only pike and pickerel.

This absence of small game and fish makes the country very uninteresting, and the long monotony between most exciting events is the greatest drawback to hunting on the Upper Ottawa.

Madison Grant.

A Hunting Trip in India

Early in 1881 I landed at Bombay, intending to get as many varieties of big game shooting as possible during the course of the year. I was well armed with introductions, including many from the Department of State, and during my stay in India was treated by the English military officers, civil officials, planters and merchants with a hearty hospitality which I cordially appreciated. Thanks to this hospitality, and to the readiness with which all to whom I was introduced fell into my plans, I was able to get a rather unusually varied quantity of sport.

My first trip was in March, after tigers. On the 1st of March I started from Hyderabad with Colonels Fraser and Watson, and traveled by palanquin that day and night, and most of the next day, striking the foot of the Gāt at a place called Rungapore, and then going on over a great plain, beyond which we camped. The scenery was magnificent, and we heard much news of the devastation of tigers among the large herds of miserable-looking cattle belonging to the poor villagers roundabout. The thermometer went up to 96 degrees in the shade during the day, but the nights were lovely and cool. Thanks to Colonel Fraser, we were fitted out as comfortably as we could be, and the luxury of the camp life offered the strongest possible contrast to my experiences in roughing it on the buffalo range in northwestern Texas.

For the first two days we accomplished nothing, though several of the cattle we had put out for baits were killed, and though we started and beat the jungles with our elephants whenever we received khubber, or news. Our camp equipage included twenty elephants, forty camels and bullocks, thirty horses for the troopers, and fifty baggage horses. We had seventeen private servants, twenty-six police, fifty-two bearers, and an indefinite number of attendants for the elephants and camels, and of camp followers. An Indian of high position, Sir Salar Jung, was along also; so our total retinue comprised 350 men, in addition to which we employed each day of beaters 150 or 200 more.

On March 5th, one of the shikaris brought word that he had seen and heard a tigress and two cubs at a nullah about six miles away. Immediately we started up the valley, Col. Fraser, Col. Watson and myself, each on his own elephant. The jungle was on fire and the first beat was not successful, for we had to fight the fire, and in the excitement the brute got off. However, some of the watchers saw her, and marked her down in another small ravine. Through this we again beat, the excitement being at fever heat. I was, of course, new to the work, and the strangeness of the scene, the cries of the beaters and watchers, the occasional explosion of native fireworks, together with the quantity of other game that we saw, impressed me much. In this ravine I was favored by good luck. The tigress broke right in front of me, and I hit her with a ball from a No. 12 smooth-bore. She sickened at once and crawled back into the jungle. In we went on the elephants, tracking her up. She made no attempt to charge, and I finished her off with another barrel of the smooth-bore and two express bullets. The crowd of natives ran up, abusing the tigress and praising me, while the two colonels drank my health. We then padded the tigress and rode back to camp, having been gone from half past 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening. This tigress weighed, when we brought her in, 280 pounds; her living weight must have been much more.

Next day we again got news of a tigress, with one cub, but we failed to find her. The following day, for a change, I tried still-hunting through the woods. There was not much game, but what we did see was far from shy, and the shooting was easy. The camp was on a terrace, and from it we went up a range of hills to the stalking ground. It was a stony country and the trees were scrubby. I shot two cheetul, or spotted deer, and also two of the little jungle cocks. The next day again was a blank, but on the 9th we got another tiger. Thanks to the courtesy of my friends, I was given the first shot, again hitting it with one barrel of the smooth-bore. The heat was very great on this day. It was not possible to touch the gun barrels without a glove, and the thirst was awful. In the evening the cool bath was a luxury indeed. By moonlight the camp was very fine. The next morning I was off at daybreak, snipe shooting around a big tank, seven miles away. On my return I found that my companions had gone out for a beat, and so, after a hurried breakfast, I jumped on my horse and rode after them. That afternoon we beat two ravines and got a tiger. This was the last tiger that we killed. The weather was getting very warm, and, though we stayed a week longer out, we failed to get on terms with Mr. Stripes again. However, I shot three sambur stags. Two of them were weighed in camp, their weight being, respectively, 450 and 438 pounds.

It was now getting hot, and I determined to start northward for my summer's hunting in the Himalayas and Cashmere, although it was rather early to try to get through the mountains. I left Lahore on April 6th for the Pir Pinjal. My transportation consisted of eight pack ponies and three native single-horse carts. I was shown every courtesy by Mr. McKay, a member of the Forest Department, at Gujarat. I intended to make a hunt for gorals and bears in the mountains around the Pir Pinjal before striking through to Cashmere. The goral is a little mountain antelope, much like the chamois, only with straight horns. The bear in the region in which I was hunting was the black bear, which is very much like our own black bear. Further on in the Himalayas is found the red or snow bear, which is a good deal like the great brown bear of Europe, or a small and inoffensive grizzly. After leaving Gujarat, I traveled for several days before coming to my hunting ground proper, although on the way I killed some peacocks, partridges, and finally some very handsome pheasants of different kinds. The country offered the greatest possible contrast to that in which I had been hunting tigers. Everything was green and lovely, and the scenery was magnificent beyond description—the huge steep mountains rising ahead of me, while the streams were crystal-clear, noisy torrents. The roads were very rough, and the wild flowers formed great carpets everywhere.

On the 16th of April I began my shooting, having by this time left my heavy baggage behind, and having with me only what the coolies could carry. I had two shikaris, four servants and twelve coolies, besides myself. On April 16th I killed my first goral. I had hunted in vain all day, but about 5 o'clock one of the shikaris advised my starting out again and climbing around the neighboring cliffs. I did this for two and one-half hours, and then got a close shot and killed the little beast. This was my first trial of grass-shoes, and my first experience in climbing over the stupendous mountain masses; for stupendous they were, though they were only the foothills of the Himalayas proper. Without grass-shoes it is impossible to climb on these smooth, grassy slopes; but I found that they hurt my feet a great deal. The next day I again went off with my two shikaris over the mountains. Each of them carried a gun. I had all I could do to take care of myself without one, for a mis-step would have meant a fall of a thousand or two feet. In the morning we saw five gorals and I got one. At 10 I stopped and a coolie came up with a lunch, and I lay reading, sleeping and idly watching the grand mountains until the afternoon, when we began again to examine the nullahs for game, being all the time much amused by the monkeys. At 4 we started again, and in a jagged mass of precipices I got another goral. The next day I repeated my experience, and had one of the characteristic bits of bad luck, offset by good luck, that come to every hunter—missing a beautiful shot at fifty yards, and then, by a fluke, killing a goral at 300 yards. The animal, however, fell over 1,000 feet and was ruined. I myself had a slip this day and went down about fifty feet. The following day I again went off to climb, and the first ascent was so steep that at the top I was completely blown, and missed a beautiful shot at a goral at fifty yards. I then arranged a beat, but nothing came from it, and the morning was a blank. In the afternoon I gave up beating and tried still-hunting again. It was hard work, but I was very successful, and killed two gorals and a bear.

At this time I was passed by two English officers, also going in to shoot—one of them, Captain S. D. Turnbull, a very jolly fellow and a good sportsman, with whom I got on excellent terms; the other, a Captain C., was a very bad walker and a poor shot, and was also a disagreeable companion, as he would persist in trying to hang around my hunting grounds, thus forcing me continually to shift.

On April 21st I tried driving for gorals, and got four, and on the next two days I got three gorals and two bears. So far I had had great luck and great sport. The work was putting me in fine trim, except my feet, which were getting very sore. It was very hard work going after the gorals. The bears offered easier stalking, and, like our American black bear but unlike our grizzly, they didn't show fight. The climbing was awful work. The stones and grass-shoes combined bruised and skinned the soles of my feet, so that I could not get relief without putting them in clarified butter and then keeping them up in the air. Accordingly I tried resting for a day, and meant to rest the following day too; but could not forbear taking a four hours' stroll along the banks of the brawling, snow-fed river, and was rewarded by shooting a surow—a queer, squatty, black antelope, about the size of a Rocky Mountain white goat and with similar horns. The next day I rested again, hoping my feet would get better. Instead they got worse, and I made up my mind that, as they were so bad, I might as well get some hunting anyhow, so off I tramped on the 27th for another all-day jog. It would be difficult to describe the pain that my feet gave me all day long. However, it was a real sporting day. I suffered the tortures of the damned, but I got two gorals and one tahr—a big species of goat with rather small horns—and then hobbled back to camp. Next day I stayed quietly in camp, and then started back to the camp where I had left my heavy baggage. On the way I picked up another black bear. My feet were in a frightful condition, but I had had a fortnight's excellent sport.

I then went on to Cashmere, and on May 6th reached Siringur. The scenery was beautiful beyond description, and the whole life of the natives very attractive to look at. However, something did not agree with me, for I was very sick and had to go to bed for several days. There were one or two American friends there, and these and the Englishmen, to whom I had letters of introduction, treated me with extreme courtesy. As soon as I got well, I started off for the real mountains, hoping especially to get ibex and markhoor. The ibex is almost exactly the same as the European animal of that name. The markhoor is a magnificent goat, with long whitish hair and great spiral horns. They also have in these Cashmere valleys a big stag called the barramigh, which is a good deal like our wapiti, only not half so large. On May 21st I started off, first by boat, but I was bothered from the beginning by chills and fever. I was weak, and glad I didn't have to march. At first, all I did in shooting was to have my coolies beat some brush patches near camp. Out of one of them they started a little musk-deer, which I shot. Soon I began to get very much better and we took up our march. I was going toward Astor, but encountered much snow, as it was still early in the season for these high mountains. I saw some grand barramigh, but their horns were, of course, only just growing, and I didn't molest them.

Very soon I got into a country where the red bears literally swarmed. From May 26th to June 5th, during which time I was traveling and hunting all the time, I shot no less than sixteen, together with two musk-deer, but saw nothing else. The marching was very hard, and some of the passes dangerous. I met a British officer, Lieutenant Carey, on the 30th, who treated me very well indeed. The scenery was very beautiful, although rather bleak. I did not pick up strength as much as I had hoped. On June 3d I christened my camp Camp Good Luck, because of the phenomenal success I had with the bears. That morning we left by 4 to cross the river before the snow had melted. The thermometer would go down to 30 degrees, even in the valleys, at night, so that everything would freeze, and then would go up to 110 in the day, and when the snow melted the streams would come down in a perfect torrent. Not two miles beyond the river I saw three bears on the side of a hill, a she and two two-year-old cubs. My shikari made a splendid stalk and brought me within forty yards, and I got all three with a shot apiece. The delight of my camp followers was amusing. I then left the tents, and, taking only my blankets and a lunch basket with me, started off again. At midday I slept, and at 2 o'clock started up the nullah, seeing a number of bears. One of them I got within fifty yards, and two others, right and left, at 100 yards. The skinning took a long time, and the stream which I had to cross was up with the evening flood, so that I didn't get back to camp until 10 o'clock. I had shot unusually well, I had been happy and was all tired out, and it is needless to say how I slept.

Soon after this I began to suffer from fever, and I had to work very hard indeed, as I was now on the ibex ground. For several days, though I saw ibex, I was unable to get near them. Finally, on June 9th, I got my first one, a young buck with small horns. I had to hunt way up the mountain, even beyond bush vegetation, and the hot sun at midday was awful. Nevertheless, by very hard climbing, I managed on this day to get within shot first of a herd of nine females, which I did not touch, and then of the young buck, which I killed. On June 13th, by another heart-breaking climb, very high up, I got a second small buck. I did not get back to camp that night till half past 9—tired out, feet badly cut with the stones and bruised all over; but in spite of the fever I enjoyed every day—the scenery was so grand and the life so exhilarating. Four days afterwards came a red-letter day. I started early in the morning, clambering up among the high mountains. Until noon I saw nothing; then several flocks of ibex came in sight, one of them of eleven big bucks. I had to wait four hours to get into a position to stalk; then by quick work and awful climbing I came within close range and killed three. It was half past 10 in the evening before I got back to camp, very nearly done up, but exultant over my good luck.

The traveling now became very severe and I had a great deal of difficulty even with the coolies, and though I hunted hard I got little game until July 8th. I had been shifting, trying to get on markhoor ground, and on this day I killed my first markhoor. The shikaris and I left the coolies to go around the path while we went over the mountain, a five hours' climb, keeping a sharp lookout for game. Just at the beginning of the ascent we saw three fine-looking markhoor grazing in a nullah, and after a stalk of about a mile, during which time it began to rain, the beasts went into a jungle on the steep side of the mountain. Through this we still-hunted and I got a shot through the bushes at 100 yards. By good luck I hit and great was the rejoicing. Five days later I got two ibex, which at a distance we had mistaken for markhoor. Then I was attacked by a terrible dysentery and was within an ace of dying. For a fortnight I was unable to leave camp, excepting when I was carried slowly along by the coolies in the effort to get me out of the mountains. On August 1st I shot a second markhoor. We were journeying at the time. In the very rough places I had to walk, though awfully weak; elsewhere the coolies carried me. The markhoor was just below us, round a turn in the Indus Valley. I was in advance with one of the shikaris and got a quiet shot, and more by good luck than anything else—for I was very weak—I killed. I now began gradually to pick up strength, and when near Astor I got a urial, a kind of wild sheep.

I had no other experience of note till I got back to Siringur, where I stayed to recuperate, and at the end of August went off once more into the foothills, this time after barramigh. In a week's work I killed three, but again became sick, and had to give up and come in.

I forthwith returned to India, the hot weather being by this time pretty well over. As I was very anxious to kill an elephant, I went down to Ceylon, reaching that island the end of October and going out to Kandy. I met a number of Englishmen, who were very kind to me, as were some Eurasian gentlemen. On November 16th I left Minerva for a regular hunt. It was very interesting shooting through the tropical jungle and I had good luck. There were plenty of elephants, but at first I didn't get any, though I shot five spotted deer and a boar. Finally, however, I got two of the big brutes I was mainly after. One of them, which I killed on the 20th of the month, was said to be a rogue that had killed two villagers and done at intervals a good deal of damage to the crops. An old native tracker had guaranteed to show me this elephant. He kept his word. For three or four miles we had a very exciting track, and then came on him standing in the jungle, occasionally flapping his ears, and crept up to within thirty yards. I think he was asleep and I got a perfectly good shot, but, extraordinary to say, I missed. However, when he ran I went after him, and, getting very close, I shot him in the hip, so injuring his leg that he could not get away. He could still get round after us, and we passed a most lively half-hour, he trumpeting and charging incessantly, until, after expending a great quantity of cartridges, I finally put a bullet behind his eye, and down he went.

Soon after this I went back to Kandy, and early in December left India for good.

Elliott Roosevelt.

HOW OUR OUTFIT WAS CARRIED.

Dog Sledging in the North

A good many years ago, my friends, Boies Penrose, Granville Keller, and I concluded that it would be a fitting termination to a very successful summer and fall hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains to endeavor to kill some moose and caribou in the Lake Winnipeg country, Manitoba. Thus we should combine very different kinds of sport amid surroundings more dissimilar than we imagined at the time. The whole of this rather memorable trip occupied nearly six months.

Our adventures during the latter part of the hunt, that is, during our sojourn in the far north—while a part of the every-day experience of those familiar with the winter life in the woods of that country—were of a character totally unknown to the majority of sportsmen in the United States, and for this reason it has been thought worth while to give a short account of them.

If my recollection serves me correctly, we arrived at Selkirk, at the lower end of Lake Winnipeg, in the latter part of October, to find navigation already closed. We had hoped to reach the upper part of the lake by means of a steamer, but found this impossible, and were therefore obliged to go on sleds to our first hunting ground—a moose country to the south of the head waters of the Fisher River, between Lake Winnipeg and Lake Winnipegosis.

At Selkirk we were joined by a Mr. Phillips, and we had there employed an Indian boy to look after the dogs. This Indian was a magnificent specimen physically, and certainly the best walker that I have ever known. With the exception of a pardonable fondness for our whisky, he behaved very well at first, but afterward became so insufferably lazy that he was scarcely fit for the simple work of driving one of the dog teams—a change which was to be attributed entirely to our kind treatment of him. He was, however, a good trailer, but the worst shot that I remember to have met. He seemed to have no difficulty in finding moose, but could not hit them, which was the exact reverse of our experience.

Portions of the country between Lakes Winnipeg and Winnipegosis, visited by our party, are as flat as the flattest portions of New Jersey, and for great distances nothing could be more level except possibly a billiard table. It is traversed by very few rivers or even creeks, there being immense stretches of territory where the only guide back to camp is the sun when it shines, or when it does not your compass, or the dog-sled trail through the snow leading to the camp. The different portions of this region are so much alike that it is almost impossible to tell one from another.

Owing to the fact that it is very dangerous to be caught out over night, with the thermometer ranging anywhere from zero to 50 degrees below, we took the precaution to mount a big red flag in the top of the highest spruce we could find near our camp, so that, by climbing a high tree anywhere within a radius of a mile or so, one could easily see this flag. To still further reduce the chance of getting lost, we blazed the trees in a straight line for four miles due south of the camp, and, as the dog-sled trail came into our camp (which was in the heavy timber) from the north, it was not difficult to find one's way home in the evening. These precautions—needless elsewhere, but wise in this country—were taken principally because each of us had always been in the habit for years of hunting alone—a practice which I would recommend to anyone who desires to be really successful in killing big game.

This vast expanse of flat country is quite heavily wooded over large areas, the timber being spruce, tamarack, poplar, birch, etc., with a great abundance of red and gray willow. The underbrush is sometimes very thick. There are, however, innumerable open places, which bear the local name of muskegs. These are, of course, marshes in summer, and covered with a heavy growth of grass; in winter they are frozen hard, and traveling over them is comparatively easy.

The moose seem to be fond of remaining close to the edges of these muskegs, which are usually fringed with a heavy growth of willows. It would appear, however, that they venture out into these open places either during the night, early in the morning, or late in the afternoon; and, as these were the times when we were very glad either to be in camp or to be returning to it, we had more success in finding the moose in the timber, or on the little so-called ridges, which sometimes attain the remarkable height of four or five feet.

Up to the time of leaving this camp we had very little opportunity to use snowshoes, as the snow was not yet—about the last of November—deep enough to make these necessary. We hunted all of the time in moccasins, boots of any description being simply out of the question, as they would soon freeze as hard as iron. After the cold weather set in, one day's experience with boots was quite sufficient for me, and I came to the conclusion, as I had often before in other regions, that it is very difficult to improve, in the matter of clothing, upon the customs of the country. The sudden change to moccasins was very tiring at first, but after one gets used to walking in them he will find that he can walk further and hunt better in them than any other style of foot-gear. We used, as I remember, first one or two pairs of heavy woolen socks, then a very heavy so-called "German" sock, coming up to the knee, over which we wore the high laced moccasin of the country.

Before we had very long been engaged in moose hunting we all learned that we were not so expert in the art of killing big game as we previously imagined ourselves. In all my experience I have never met with any animal which is so difficult to get a shot at, even when quite numerous, as the moose in this region. It must always be borne in mind that to kill a moose—especially in a country where they have been hunted for generations by the Indians—by the thoroughly sportsmanlike method of following the trail of one until you finally get a shot at it and kill it, is a totally different thing from killing the same moose either by calling him at night in the autumn or by paddling on him in a canoe in the summer. In fact, of all the difficult things I have ever undertaken in the way of sport, I regard this as the most difficult; and before I got my first shot I began to think that there was a great deal of truth in the Indian's sneering remark, "White man no kill moose." Finally one day my luck turned, but that it did so was due more to the realization of my own inferiority, and lack of the proper kind of knowledge, than to anything else.

It happened in this way: having thoroughly convinced myself that the moose either smelt me or in some other way found out that I was in their neighborhood before I could be made aware of the same fact, I concluded that there was something radically wrong in my manner of hunting them, although I employed every method known to me—methods which had been acquired in an experience during which I had killed considerably over one hundred head of big game, throughout the Rockies and the Alleghanies. In short, I was exceedingly painstaking and careful. Notwithstanding all my precautions, however, I remember that I had the satisfaction one night of knowing that I had started during the day eight different moose, each separately, without hearing or seeing a single one of them. This sort of thing lasted for twenty-two consecutive days, or until I finally concluded that, as our Indian seemed to have no trouble in seeing moose, I would follow his tactics. Waiting, therefore, one morning until I was sure that the Indian had left camp, I changed my course so as to intersect his trail, followed this for some distance, and watched carefully his foot-prints, so as to read the record of his hunt.

Pretty soon it became apparent that he had come across a moose trail. He tried it first with the toe of his moccasin, then with the butt of his gun, and satisfied himself that it was too old to follow. He went on until he came across another trail, and evidently had spent considerable time in making up his mind whether it was worth while to follow this trail or not. He then followed it for a few yards, and, to my surprise, suddenly left it, and went off almost at right angles to the leeward. I supposed that he had given up the moose trail, but nevertheless I followed further on his track. Again to my surprise, I presently found him gradually coming around in a circuitous fashion to the trail again, until he finally reached it. He then immediately retraced his steps, making another semi-circle, bearing generally, however, in the direction the moose had gone, and again came to the trail. This occurred four or five times, until finally the explanation of his conduct flashed upon me, for there lay his cartridge. I saw—as he afterward described it to me—where he had shot at the moose, which had just arisen out of its bed a short distance away, but, as usual, he had missed it. Now I had noticed, in my three weeks' experience, that I had come upon the moose either lying down or standing in some thicket, but that they had been able to wind me considerably before my arrival at the spot marked by their beds in the snow. Not until then had occurred to me what is well known to many who still-hunt moose, namely, that before lying down they generally make a long loop to the leeward, returning close to their trail, so that they can readily get the wind of anyone following upon it long before he reaches them, when, of course, they quietly get up and sneak away. In fact, they do not seem to have an atom of curiosity in their composition, and in this are different from most other wild animals that I have known. By making these long loops to the leeward the hunter reduces to a minimum the likelihood of being smelt or heard by the moose; and in these animals the senses of smell and hearing are very acute, although their eyesight seems to be bad.

Having quite satisfied myself as to what it was necessary to do, I waited until the next day to put it into execution, because by the time I had made my discovery it was about half past 2 o'clock, and the sun was near the horizon.

The following day I went out bright and early, and, after varying success in finding a good trail, I ran across a trail made by five bull moose, a photograph of one of which is shown. After satisfying myself that the trail had been made during the previous night, I began making the long loops to the leeward which I had found to be so necessary. I finally came to the place where the moose had lain down—a bed showing one of them to have unusually large horns—but they had gone on again, in a manner, however, that showed that they were merely feeding, and not alarmed. I redoubled my precautions, stepping as if on eggs, so as not to break the twigs underneath my feet. In a short time I heard the significant chattering of one of the little red pine squirrels so abundant in that region. I at once knew that the squirrel had seen something, but had not seen me. It did not take me long to make up my mind that the only other living things in that vicinity which would be likely to cause him to chatter were these moose, and that they were probably startled, although I had not been conscious of making any noise. At any rate, I ran quite rapidly toward the end of a small narrow muskeg on my left, but some distance away, to which chance conclusion and prompt action I owe probably one of the most fortunate and exciting pieces of shooting that has occurred in my experience. I was shooting at that time a little double rifle (.450-120-375 solid bullet), which had been made for me by Holland & Holland, and which was fitted with one of my conical sights.

Before I was within fifty yards of the end of the muskeg, I saw one of the moose dash across it, about 150 yards away. I fired quickly, and in much the same way that I would shoot at a jacksnipe which had been flushed in some thicket; but had the satisfaction of seeing the animal lurch heavily forward as he went out of sight into the timber. Almost immediately, and before I had time to reload, the second moose followed. I gave him the other barrel, but I did not know until afterward that he was hit. In fact, it was hard to get a bullet through the timber. I reloaded quickly, and ran forward to get to the opening; but before I reached it, the third moose passed in immediately behind the others. I again shot quickly, and felt that I had probably hit him. By running on rapidly I reached the edge of the opening in time to intercept the fourth moose. As he came into the opening I got a good shot at him, not over eighty yards distant, and felt very sure of this one at least. I then reloaded, when, to my amazement, the fifth, in a very deliberate manner, walked, not trotted, into the muskeg, which at the point where the moose crossed it was not over sixty or seventy feet wide. He first looked up and down, as if undetermined what to do, and then, probably seeing one of the other moose on the ground, commenced walking up toward me. As luck would have it, I got a cartridge jammed in my rifle, and could not pull it out or knock it in, although I nearly ruined my fingers in my attempt to do so. Of course, this was the biggest bull of all, and I had the supreme satisfaction of seeing him deliberately walk out of my sight into the woods, and he was lost to me forever. His horns were much larger than those which I got. Up to that time I had no idea that I had killed any except the last moose that I shot at, but thought that perhaps I had wounded one or two of the others, feeling that I would be very lucky if I should ever come up with them.

Going down to the place where the moose had disappeared, after I had got my rifle fixed—that is, had extracted the cartridge and put in another—I found one of the moose dead; another, a big one, on his knees, and the third a short distance away, looking very dejected and uncomfortable. I did not know then that the largest bull of all had stopped on the other side of a little thicket; and when I commenced to give the finishing touches to the wounded moose in sight, he, accompanied by another wounded one, got away. As I shot the big one on his knees, I was surprised by a noise, and upon turning around found the dejected looking small bull coming full drive toward me. I had only time to turn around and shoot him in the breast before he was on me. I do not think that he intended to charge; his coming toward me was probably entirely accidental. Still it had the effect of sending my heart in my mouth. I then started out after the wounded one, but when I saw that he was not bleeding much concluded that, as it was growing late, and I was seven or eight miles from camp, I would not have more than time to cover up the three moose with snow so that I could skin them the next morning. Before doing so, however, I sat down on top of my biggest moose, and, as these were the first moose that I had ever seen, I surveyed them with a great deal of satisfaction.

About this time Phillips, who had been attracted by the shooting, appeared in the distance, and I hailed him by a shot, when he came to me. We then carefully covered up the moose with snow and pulled out for camp. When we arrived there and told our story, a more disconsolate looking Indian you could not have found in the whole region, and he doubtless came to the conclusion that his sweeping assertion as to the inability of a white man to kill a moose in that country was perhaps a little too broad.

Our luck seemed to turn from this time and we got several very good moose, but unfortunately no other large heads. After telling this story I do not wish to go upon record as a game slaughterer, for those who know anything of my hunting know that I am strongly opposed to anything of the kind. We usually have killed only enough game for meat in camp, but at this time we had to feed beside ourselves ten dogs. Moreover, I have never thought that the killing of bulls made very much difference in the amount of the game, although in shooting them we have usually made it a rule to kill only such heads as we wished to take home. I should add, moreover, that all the meat that we did not use of the moose that we killed in this country was distributed among some Indians whom we met on our return, and who, hearing of our luck, followed our dog trail to the hunting grounds after our departure.

Having had enough moose hunting, and anxious to kill caribou, we concluded to cross Lake Winnipeg, which by this time—early in December—was frozen hard with nearly six feet of ice, the cracking of which, especially at night, produces a very curious and never-to-be-forgotten sound, which can be heard for miles. We soon reached the lake, but were detained a day or two waiting for a favorable day to cross—that is to say, one when the wind did not blow, as when it does the exposure in crossing on the ice is terrific. After finally venturing upon the ice, we made some forty or fifty miles the first day, and reached the edge of an island, in the middle of which there were a few houses occupied principally by Icelandic immigrants. These earn a precarious livelihood by fishing for whitefish and jackfish principally in the summer. They keep up this fishing all through the winter, however, to supply their own needs, by setting their nets underneath the ice, employing a very simple method, which, if De Long and his party had known and provided for, they would never have perished so miserably in the Lena delta. Here we were witnesses to the fact which entitles us to claim that the common domestic cow is not, strictly speaking, properly to be classed among the herbivora. We distinctly saw a very ordinary looking cow devour with evident relish, while she was being milked, a large jackfish, which had been taken from a frozen pile stacked up outside of the house and thawed for her evening meal.

These Icelanders live as a rule in a primitive but very comfortable way. They are much more neat and cleanly than many of the immigrants who come to the United States, and it is a pity that we do not have them in this country, for they seem to be very industrious and would make good citizens. However, it is probable that they were in search of cold weather, and would not be happy unless they had it. If this is the case, they most certainly have chosen the best spot on this continent which is at all accessible; for the region around Lake Winnipeg is, I am told, one of the coldest places where any reliable record of the temperature is kept. During our trip, and especially while we were on the east side of the lake, the temperatures recorded were very low, often 45 degrees below zero. In fact, during our absence there was a record of 50 degrees below zero at Selkirk and Winnipeg; and, as we were over a hundred miles to the north, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the temperature was quite as low, if not lower, with us. It must not be forgotten, however, that, except for the cracking of the frozen trees, it is deathly still and quiet in these regions when the temperature drops to 10 degrees below zero. Indeed, when the temperature is below that point, it is usually much more comfortable for one who is out in such weather than a temperature of zero, or even 20 degrees above, with a heavy wind. Under these conditions, however, an ordinary man when out hunting cannot occasionally sit down on a log and smoke his pipe, for any length of time, with a great amount of pleasure. Like the persecuted boy in the play, although there are no policemen about, he is compelled, and indeed is usually perfectly willing, to keep "movin' on."

After leaving Big Island, as I remember the name, we made our way across to the mouth of the Bad Throat River, where there was an old lumber camp, which a great many years ago was the scene of an important conflict between the Hudson Bay Company's men and the men of the Northwest Fur Company, in which quite a number were killed. Here we got another team of dogs, and picked up another member for our party in the person of an Englishman, who by choice had drifted into this country and lived there, marrying an Indian squaw shortly after our return. Unfortunately, the good old-fashioned plan of performing the marriage ceremony by running together under a blanket had been abolished, so he had to wait until the yearly visit of the priest. This marrying of squaws is of course common among the white men of this region.

As we had only a few things to get before starting out for the famous caribou country between the head waters of the Hole, the Askandoga and the Blood Vein rivers, we were not delayed long at this place. The snow was now quite heavy, at least enough so for comfortable snowshoe traveling, and we made rapid time after leaving the Bad Throat River. In this connection it is to be remarked that comparatively little snow falls in this region. This seems singular, and I do not know the meteorological explanation of the fact. There is certainly very much less, for instance, than in Minnesota, hundreds of miles to the south. The snow, however, is usually a dry powder all through winter, and very rarely becomes crusted.

In traveling over broken timbered country with dog-sleds, very much the same routes are followed that one takes with a canoe in summer—that is to say, you avoid the rough country by traveling on the rivers, which are usually covered with thick ice, or over the same portages that are used in summer. It was necessary for either Penrose, Keller or myself to lead the way with our snowshoes, while the others took care of the dog-sleds behind. The dogs followed accurately in the trail beaten out by our snowshoes for them.

The country on this side of the lake, unlike that of the west, is very rough, rocky and rugged, and especially so near the lake shore. It is quite thickly timbered. As one advances into the interior, however, this aspect changes, so that the country near the height of land is more open, and there are long stretches of nearly level country traversed by rocky, moss-covered and roughly parallel ridges. There is more or less timber on these ridges, and in the so-called muskegs between them. This is the country which the caribou seem to prefer.

After about two weeks' hard traveling, we reached the country which had been recommended to us and came upon great abundance of caribou sign. In fact, there were millions of tracks, but, curiously enough, no caribou were to be seen. We afterward found that they had been driven out by a lot of wolves, which probably had followed them down from the north. While this explanation was interesting, it was not productive of any great amount of satisfaction to the party, for we had been counting definitely upon fresh meat, and so had our dogs. At least, after doing the terrific work necessary to make this journey, it is fair to presume that they had counted upon being fed, and not being left to starve miserably while tied to a tree.

To add to our hardships, our Indian tepee, made of canvas, began to smoke so excessively as to cause us the greatest discomfort, and we all thought we had pneumonia; but afterward concluded it was nothing but irritation of the lungs, due to breathing pine smoke a good many hours each day. In fact, it was almost unbearable. An Indian tepee of this kind, properly made by a squaw, is beyond doubt the most comfortable of all hunting tents in any respectable climate; but in a climate of 40 degrees below zero it is an abomination. We used frequently to crawl into our sheep-skin sleeping bags, wrap several blankets around the bags and put the fire out, merely to get relief from the annoyance of the smoke. In the morning the steam which arose from our bodies, and from the meal which we might be cooking, got mixed up with the smoke, so that it was impossible to distinguish each other when four feet apart. In fact, we were sometimes inclined to think that the dogs on the outside were better off than ourselves, though the appearance they presented in the morning was not such as to cause us to wish to change places with them. They were each tied by a short chain to the pine trees about the camp, and after a night of low temperature there were to be seen in the morning only twelve white mounds of snow; not that any snow had fallen during the night, or that the dogs had crawled underneath that already on the ground. Their white appearance was simply due to the dense coating of frost which had been produced from the condensation caused by the heat of their bodies. It must not be forgotten, however, that they are as hardy and as well able to withstand this rigorous climate as the wolves, from which many of them are directly descended. All of the so-called "huskies" are of this type.

Altogether things were not very pleasant about this time. Our Christmas Day rations consisted of one small roll each with a little coffee for breakfast, and in the evening each man was given a small piece of rabbit.

The rabbits in this country were unfortunately not as abundant as they were on the opposite side of the lake, where the Indian boy one day went out with one of our rifles to visit his rabbit snares and to shoot rabbits for the dogs. Before long we heard him shoot four times. He came back to camp with eight rabbits, which had certainly been killed with the rifle, none of them having been snared.

Those of us who were able to hunt at all hunted with the greatest perseverance, but with little success, until finally some one brought in the report that caribou had been seen, and in a very few days the country again contained numbers of them.

One morning, shortly after the first caribou had been seen, Keller, who had been quite sick, was unable longer to tolerate the smoke of the tepee, and took a little walk with his rifle close around our camp. He soon came upon the fresh trail of a bunch of caribou. He had followed it only a few hundred yards when he saw one of the caribou lying down. He is a dead shot, the best I have ever known in my life. He carefully steadied himself, raised his .45-90 Winchester, aimed at the caribou lying down and fired. When he went up to look at it, to his amazement, he came across another dead caribou, between the spot where he had fired and the one at which he had aimed. It had been shot straight through the temples. On going further, he found the other caribou shot exactly where he had aimed at it, some twenty yards distant from the first one. The only possible way in which he could explain this remarkable occurrence is that the caribou which had been shot through the head, and which he had not seen, had risen out of its bed just as he was in the act of firing and interposed his head directly in the line of fire. The fact of having fresh meat in camp, of course, brought great joy to us all, and especially to the semi-starved dogs. As in the case of killing the first moose, it seemed to have the effect of changing our luck, for we afterward killed a number of caribou, although we were not successful in getting good heads.

These caribou are totally different from the moose in the kind of food they live upon and in their general habits. They prefer a different sort of a country, the two rarely being found together. They spend much of their time in the muskegs, which seem to be characteristic of all of that region of the country; but these muskegs are not open, like those on the west side of the lake, being more or less covered with a growth of stubby jack pine, from which usually hangs an abundance of long gray moss. The caribou feed upon this moss, while the moose, on the other hand, are fond of the tender sprouts of the red and gray willow. The caribou, however, are often found on the rocky ridges, where they find good feed on the moss growing upon the rocks. Indeed, they seem to have no settled place of abode, like moose, being probably one of the most restless animals on the face of the earth. They seem to be always on the move. Unlike the moose, they are very inquisitive, in this respect being more like the antelope than any other animal. They are found singly, or in twos or threes, or in small bunches of ten to twenty, but often in great herds of a hundred or perhaps a thousand. They spend a great deal of their time on the lakes in the winter, where they play with each other like kittens. They are wonderfully quick in their actions. They are also very sure of their footing, and we saw a number of places in the snow where they had slid down quite steep rocks for some distance, probably by putting their four feet close together. Great herds often come down from the region on the western shore of Hudson Bay and return the following summer.

Very few people have any idea of the immense numbers of caribou which are found in the great tract of country to the west of Hudson Bay. By many who are familiar with this country they are believed to be as numerous as the buffaloes ever were in the early days. When more or less scarce, as they were during the greater portion of our hunt, they afford excellent hunting; but I should imagine that when they are very numerous there would be little sport in killing them, for as a rule they are not at all shy or difficult to approach. In general it may be said that the caribou of this region, known as the woodland caribou, live in the wooded districts during the summer and autumn, but in the winter time go to the higher land. Wind and cold seem to have no terror for them, and I doubt very much whether there is an animal in the world, with the exception perhaps of the musk-ox or the polar bear, that is so well fitted by nature to withstand the intense cold of the region in which they live. When one sees a caribou's track for the first time, he is amazed at its size, and its difference from the long, narrow, sharp-toed track of the moose, and naturally comes to the conclusion that the animal must be much larger than it really is. As a matter of fact, they are not much larger than the black-tailed deer, and considerably smaller than the elk of the Rocky Mountains. Until he has seen them, one is likely to imagine that the caribou is an ungainly, misshapen animal. This is a great mistake. Not only are they as a rule well proportioned, but they are extremely graceful. Their curious horns give them, of course, rather an odd appearance. The meat we found to be delicious, and rather better than moose meat.

After having remained as long as we desired in this country, and as long as we could stand the infernal smoke of the tepee, and after having secured a good supply of meat for our return journey, we loaded our toboggans and retraced our steps without especial incident to the mouth of the Bad Throat River. From there we took a sleigh to Selkirk, driving over the lake on the ice, and arriving at Selkirk the latter part of January or the 1st of February.

To those who may contemplate taking a similar trip to the Canadian woods in winter, I would say that it will prove a very interesting and never-to-be-forgotten experience, and that the hardships of such a trip are not necessarily severe if one will be guided entirely by the advice of the inhabitants of the region, especially as to his clothing and general outfit. I feel certain that, if one goes to the right locality, not only will he get good sport, but he will get it under very pleasant and novel conditions, and return home more benefited in every way than if he had taken a trip of the same duration to some warm climate. Under no circumstances, however, let him imagine that he knows more than the people of the country as to what he should do and wear.

D. M. Barringer.

OUTESHAI, RUSSIAN BARZOI.

Wolf-Hunting in Russia

The enormous extent and diversified conditions of the various localities of this empire would naturally suggest a variety of sport in hunting and shooting, including perhaps something characteristic. In the use of dogs of the chase especially is this suggestion borne out by the facts, and it has been said that in no other country has the systematic working together of fox-hounds and greyhounds been successfully carried out.

Unfortunately, this sort of hunting is not now so general as prior to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. A modest kennel for such sport consists of six to ten fox-hounds and four to six pairs of barzois,[1] and naturally demands considerable attention. Moreover, to use it requires the presence of at least one man with the fox-hounds and one man for each pair or each three greyhounds. To have a sufficient number of good huntsmen at his service was formerly a much less expensive luxury to a proprietor than now, and to this fact is due the decline of the combined kennel in Russia.

This hunt is more or less practised throughout the entire extent of the Russian Empire. In the south, where the soil is not boggy, it is far better sport than in Northern Russia, where there are such enormous stretches of marshy woods and tundra. Curiously enough, nearly all the game of these northern latitudes, including moose, wolves, hares, and nearly all kinds of grouse and other birds, seem to be found in the marshiest places—those almost impracticable to mounted hunters.

Though the distances covered in hunting, and also in making neighborly visits in Russia, are vast, often recalling our own broad Western life, yet in few other respects are any similarities to be traced. This is especially true of Russia north of the Moscow parallel; for in the south the steppes have much in common with the prairies, though more extensive, and the semi-nomadic Cossacks, in their mounted peregrinations and in their pastoral life, have many traits in common with real Americans. Nor is it true of the Caucasus, where it would seem that the Creator, dissatisfied with the excess of the great plain,[2] extending from the Finnish Gulf to the Black Sea, resolved to establish a counterpoise, and so heaved up the gigantic Caucasus. There too are to be found fine hunting and shooting, which merit description and which offer good sport to mountain amateurs.

The annual hunt in the fall of 1893 in the governments of Tver and Yaroslav, with the Gatchino kennels, will give a good idea of the special sport of which I have spoken. It is imperative that these hounds go to the hunt once a year for about a month, although for the most part without their owner. The master of the hunt and his assistant, with three or four guests, and oftentimes the proprietors of the lands where the hounds happen to hunt, usually constitute the party. The hunt changes locality nearly every year, but rarely does it go further from home than on this occasion, about 450 versts from Gatchino. As a rule it is not difficult to obtain from proprietors permission to hunt upon their estates, and this is somewhat surprising to one who has seen the freedom with which the fences are torn down and left unrepaired. It is true that they are not of the strongest and best type, and that peasant labor is still very cheap; yet such concessions to sport would rarely be made in America.

It was at Gatchino, on the 10th day of September, that the hunting train was loaded with men, horses, dogs, provisions and wagons. The hunt called for twenty-two cars in all, including one second-class passenger car, in one end of which four of us made ourselves comfortable, while in the other end servants found places. The weather was cold and rainy, and, as our train traveled as a freight, we had two nights before us. It was truly a picturesque and rare sight to see a train of twenty-two cars loaded with the personnel, material and live stock of a huge kennel. The fox-hounds, seventy in number, were driven down in perfect, close order by the beaters to the cracks of the Russian hunting whip and installed in their car, which barely offered them sufficient accommodation. The greyhounds, three sorts, sixty-seven in number, were brought down on leashes by threes, fours or fives, and loaded in two cars. Sixty saddle and draft horses, with saddles, wagons and hunting paraphernalia, were also loaded. Finally the forty-four gray and green uniformed huntsmen, beaters, drivers and ourselves were ready, and the motley train moved away amid the uttered and unuttered benedictions of the families and relatives of the parting hunt.

Our first destination was Peschalkino, in the government of Tver, near the River Leet, a tributary of the Volga, not far from the site of the first considerable check of the Mongolian advance about 1230. I mention this fact in passing to give some idea of the terrain, because I think that it is evident to anyone who has visited this region that the difficulty of provisioning and of transportation in these marshes must have offered a greater obstacle to an invading army than did the then defenders of their country.

We passed our time most agreeably in playing vint[3] and talking of hunting incidents along the route. Many interesting things were told about the habits of wolves and other game, and, as they were vouched for by two thorough gentlemen and superb sportsmen, and were verified as far as a month's experience in the field would permit, I feel authorized to cite them as facts.

The bear has been called in folk-lore the moujik's brother, and it must be conceded that there are outward points of resemblance, especially when each is clad in winter attire; moreover the moujik, when all is snow and ice, fast approximates the hibernating qualities of the bear. One strong point of difference is the accentuated segregative character of the former, who always live in long cabin villages.[4]