Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon, Sir Samuel White Baker [best summer reads of all time TXT] 📗

so conducive to the perfection of all the senses as the constant practice in wild and dangerous sports. The eye and the ear become habituated to watchfulness, and their powers are increased in the same proportion as the muscles of the body are by exercise. Not only is an animal immediately observed, but anything out of the common among surrounding objects instantly strikes the attention; the waving of one bough in particular when all are moving in the breeze; the switching of a deer's ear above the long grass; the slight rustling of an animal moving in the jungle. The senses are regularly tuned up, and the limbs are in the same condition from continual exercise.

There is a peculiar delight, which passes all description, in feeling thoroughly well-strung, mentally and physically, with a good rifle in your hand and a trusty gun-bearer behind you with another, thus stalking quietly through a fine country, on the look-out for "anything," no matter what. There is a delightful feeling of calm excitement, if I might so express it, which nothing but wild sports will give. There is no time when a man knows himself so thoroughly as when he depends upon himself, and this forms his excitement. With a thorough confidence in the rifle and a bright lookout, he stalks noiselessly along the open glades, picking out the softest places, avoiding the loose stones or anything that would betray his steps; now piercing the deep shadows of the jungles, now scanning the distant plains, nor leaving a nook or hollow unsearched by his vigilant gaze. The fresh breakage of a branch, the barking of a tree-stem, the lately nibbled grass, with the sap still oozing from the delicate blade, the disturbed surface of a pool; everything is noted, even to the alarmed chatter of a bird: nothing is passed unheeded by an experienced hunter.

To quiet, steady-going people in England there is an idea of cruelty inseparable from the pursuit of large game; people talk of "unoffending elephants," "poor buffaloes," "pretty deer," and a variety of nonsense about things which they cannot possibly understand. Besides, the very person who abuses wild sports on the plea of cruelty indulges personally in conventional cruelties which are positive tortures. His appetite is not destroyed by the knowledge that his cook his skinned the eels alive, or that the lobsters were plunged into boiling water to be cooked. He should remember that a small animal has the same feeling as the largest and if he condemns any sport as cruel, he must condemn all.

There is no doubt whatever that a certain amount of cruelty pervades all sports. But in "wild sports" the animals are for the most part large, dangerous and mischievous, and they are pursued and killed in the most speedy, and therefore in the most merciful, manner.

The government reward for the destruction of elephants in Ceylon was formerly ten shillings per tail; it is now reduced to seven shillings in some districts, and is altogether abolished in others, as the number killed was so great that the government imagined they could not afford the annual outlay.

Although the number of these animals is still so immense in Ceylon, they must nevertheless have been much reduced within the last twenty years. In those days the country was overrun with them, and some idea of their numbers may be gathered from the fact that three first-rate shots in three days bagged one hundred and four elephants. This was told to me by one of the parties concerned, and it throws our modern shooting into the shade. In those days, however, the elephants were comparatively undisturbed, and they were accordingly more easy to approach. One of the oldest native hunters has assured me that he has seen the elephants, when attacked, recklessly expose themselves to the shots and endeavour to raise their dead comrades. This was at a time when guns were first heard in the interior of Ceylon, and the animals had never been shot at. Since that time the decrease in the game of Ceylon has been immense. Every year increases the number of guns in the possession of the natives, and accordingly diminishes the number of animals. From the change which has come over many parts of the country within my experience of the last eight years, I am of opinion that the next ten years will see the deer-shooting in Ceylon completely spoiled, and the elephants very much reduced. There are now very few herds of elephants in Ceylon that have not been shot at by either Europeans or natives, and it is a common occurrence to kill elephants with numerous marks of old bullet wounds. Thus the animals are constantly on the "qui vive," and at the report of a gun every herd within hearing starts off for the densest jungles.

A native can now obtain a gun for thirty shillings; and with two shillings' worth of ammunition, he starts on a hunting trip. Five elephants, at a reward of seven shillings per tail, more than pay the prime cost of his gun, to say nothing of the deer and other game that he has bagged in the interim.

Some, although very few, of the natives are good sportsmen in a potting way. They get close to their game, and usually bag it. This is a terrible system for destroying, and the more so as it is increasing. There is no rest for the animals; in the day-time they are tracked up, and on moonlight nights the drinking-places are watched, and an unremitting warfare is carried on. This is sweeping both deer and buffalo from the country, and must eventually almost annihilate them.

The Moormen are the best hunters, and they combine sport with trade in such a manner that "all is fish that comes to their net." Five or six good hunters start with twenty or thirty bullocks and packs. Some of these are loaded with common cloths, etc., to exchange with the village people for dried venison; but the intention in taking so many bullocks is to bring borne the spoils of their hunting trip--in fact, to "carry the bag." They take about a dozen leaves of the talipot palm to form a tent, and at night-time, the packs, being taken off the bullocks, are piled like a pillar in the centre, and the talipot leaves are formed in a circular roof above them. The bullocks are then secured round the tent to long poles, which are thrown upon the ground and pinned down by crooked pegs.

These people have an intimate knowledge of the country, and are thoroughly acquainted with the habits of the animals and the most likely spots for game. Buffaloes, pigs and deer are indiscriminately shot, and the flesh being cut in strips from the bones is smoked over a green-wood fire, then thoroughly dried in the sun and packed up for sale. The deer skins are also carefully dried and rolled up, and the buffaloes' and deer horns are slung to the packs.

Many castes of natives will not eat buffalo meat, others will not eat pork, but all are particularly fond of venison. This the Moorman fully understands, and overcomes all scruples by a general mixture of the different meats, all of which he sells as venison. Thus no animal is spared whose flesh can be passed off for deer. Fortunately, their guns are so common that they will not shoot with accuracy beyond ten or fifteen paces, or there would be no game left within a few years. How these common guns stand the heavy charges of powder is a puzzle. A native thinks nothing of putting four drachms down a gun that I should be sorry to fire off at any rate. It is this heavy charge which enables such tools to kill elephants which would otherwise be impossible. These natives look upon a first-class English rifle with a sort of veneration. Such a weapon would be a perfect fortune to one of these people, and I have often been astonished that robberies of such things are not more frequent.

There is much difference of opinion among Ceylon sportsmen as to the style of gun for elephant-shooting. But there is one point upon which all are agreed, that no matter what the size of the bore may be, all the guns should be alike, and the battery for one man should consist of four double-barrels. The confusion in hurried loading where guns are of different calibres is beyond conception.

The size and the weight of guns must depend as much on the strength and build of a man as a ship's armament does upon her tonnage; but let no man speak against heavy metal for heavy game, and let no man decry rifles and uphold smooth-bores (which is very general), but rather let him say, "I cannot carry a heavy gun," and "I cannot shoot with a rifle."

There is a vast difference between shooting at a target and shooting at live game. Many men who are capital shots at target-practice cannot touch a deer, and cannot even use the rifle as a rifle at live game, but actually knock the sights out and use it as a smoothbore. This is not the fault of the weapon; it is the fault of the man. It is a common saying in Ceylon, and also in India, that you cannot shoot quick enough with the rifle, because you cannot get the proper sight in an instant.

Whoever makes use of this argument must certainly be in the habit of very random shooting with a smoothbore. How can he possibly get a correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, that many persons fire so hastily at game that they take no sight at all, as though they were snipe-shooting with many hundred grains of shot in the charge. This will never do for ball-practice, and when the rifle is placed in such hands, the breech-sights naturally bother the eye which is not accustomed to recognize any sight; and while the person is vainly endeavouring to get the sight correctly on a moving object, the animal is increasing his distance. By way of cutting the Gordian knot, he therefore knocks his sight out, and accordingly spoils the shooting of the rifle altogether.

Put a rifle in the hands of a man who knows how to handle it, and let him shoot against the mutilated weapon deprived of its sight, and laugh at the trial. Why, a man might as well take the rudder off a ship because he could not steer, and then abuse the vessel for not keeping her course!

My idea of guns and rifles is this, that the former should be used for what their makers intended them, viz., shot-shooting, and that no ball should be fired from any but the rifle. Of course it is just as easy and as certain to kill an elephant with a smooth-bore as with a rifle, as he is seldom fired at until within ten or twelve paces; but a man, when armed for wild sport, should be provided with a weapon which is fit for any kind of ball-shooting at any reasonable range, and his battery should be perfect for the distance at which he is supposed to aim.

I have never seen any rifles which combine the requisites for Ceylon shooting to such a degree as my four double-barreled No. 10, which I had made to order. Then some