With Rifle in Five Continents

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...To-day I made some progress with these beaters on the subject of the hurly-burly. They are permitted at the beginning of the drive to shout as much as they like; after that they may only beat the trees with sticks, for with their infernal din the rhen spoil all succeeding drives for two miles round. If I kill a head of game, it is still far from being done with. The natives belong to dozens of different sects, or castes, which all have different customs and religious usages. For instance, one may never so much as touch a pig, another may touch it only when its throat has been cut, a third may touch it, a fourth may not eat it; the debating of these delicate questions takes half-an-hour, till three or four men are found who belong to an impartial sect, and may all touch and eat the pig or deer. Christmas Eve. Yesterday I had drives all day in great heat. Plenty of game was put up, but unfortunately it did not come my way. During lunch a fishing-cat ran by me and I dropped it with a bullet as it was getting into the forest; this was my sole shot to-day. The driving was, if possible, worse than yesterday, and as no tiger had killed one of our tethered buffaloes, which they call bodas, I determined to go farther afield on the morrow to the nearest water, ten and a half miles away. The scarcity of water, though advantageous to the hunter for the reason that the game must haunt the places where it is obtainable, causes me much trouble. We need a good deal in camp for the oxen and ponies, and the little wells which supply the natives would soon be dry if I were to make demands upon them. In the course of the afternoon I saw the fresh tracks of a panther, and, besides this, the prospects here are not bad, for the day before yesterday a tiger carried of...