A LEOPARD HUNT.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 2

A LEOPARD HUNT.

It was my good fortune a great many years ago, to be cantoned at Julbarri. I cay " good fortune," for co I considered it ; but lam afraid, if you had asked at our moss for votes as to whether I ought to qualify the word fortune with the adjective "" good" or " bad," I should have got very few to vote for my word. Good fortune 1 considered it, nevertheless, for I was an ardent sportsman ; Julbarri was almost untried ground, and the neighbouring juDgles abounded in game of many kinds, among which the rhiuocerous, the tiger, aud the leopard were by no mesna few and far between. And yet I cannot deny that for any one who was not a pporrs man Julbarri was about as slow a station as couM be picked out in all the length and breadth ot our vast Indian Empire. It was situated in an out-of-the-way corner of I&ngal ; and there was no largo station within a couple of hundred miiea of us wh>re a man with social and gregarious tastes could go for a few days to get rid of the oft told tales and well threshod-out politico of the limited circle of our pmall me<-s-table. At the time ut wtiich I wiite our society was at a peculiarly low ebb The drill season was over ; the hoi. weather wa* coming on ; and the leave reason had bogun Tnere was co little work to be dove that our colonel had taken pity oa our isolation, and had been unusually, perhaps almost unauthorisedly, liberal in the matter of leave ; and our vaena, small enough at ite beat, had dwindled and dwindled until now not more than 'half-a-dozen unfortunates daily t-tretched their legs boneath its well-spread mahogany. For me, the approaching heat had no terrors, the fmaliness of our society no ennui and the prospect of escape from Julbarri no charms ; for the beginning of the hot weather is the very time when the besi shooting can be obtained, and I had lon^ been watching tho drying up of the grass in the jungles, and had been looking for ward to the time when we might start t beast with some chance of bagging him, There was one thing in which we were particularly fortunate : we had attached te our regiment nine elephants at« a part ot oui regimental transport. I need scarcely ea) that it was not long before we had the elephants and their mahouts (drivers) thor oughly trained for shooting Thelargeat ele phantwe traintd to carry our howdabs, anc the smaller we used to form a line to beat th< jungles and drive out the game. Witt these elephant* we had lots of fun, and ther< : were few weeks after the shooting seasor : began in which some of us did not go ou two or three times We generally took i in turns ; four of us went out, and tw< remained behind to look after the regi meat and the station. We had been having very fair sport 01 and off for about six weeks, and th< animals in the jungles close around th< station seemed to have been all killed off o: driven away ; for a whole week passed, anc no khubber good enough to tempt even m< did our shikhares bring. It was th< seventh blank day. and as we sat at ou hazri (early morning cup of some invigora ting but harmless beverage), under the hade of a splendid mungo-tree which grew conveniently close to our meas-houa* yeranda, my chum and I were discussing th( necessity of taking a week's trip across th( river which skirted our station, and wen trying to cajole our companions into let ting us have the use of the elephants for sc l")ng a time. We had nearly succeeded inp9r suadingthem of the uselessness of expecting to get any mure shooting close to Julbarri iad two of the least enthusiastic jf jui Nimrods had actually given is, when intc the compound aud right up to our tabU who should tiash but Jamala, the very besi and the most trustworthy of all oui shikarees ! Almost breathless, he etam mered out, "Sahib, sahib, two such hugt tigers ! Their pugs are as big as that :' and ho described with the end of the sticfc he held in his hand a figure in the dust, intended to portray the size of their foot prints, which would have done credit to t well-frrown mammoth. " They have killed a bullock in the Kala jungle, only six mile. 5 off ; and I am sure they were still there when I left half an hour ago. I ordered the elephants to be ready asl passed the lines." Here was news with a vengeance ; but, ala«, it was my turn to stay in cantonments ; and with such splendid khubber as this ] could not, of course, even hint the sugges tion of an exchange. It was the custom ol those going out to borrow all the firearms oi those remaining behind ; so I and Castleton, who was my comrade in misfortune, made over our Joe Manton guns and our Purdeys to our luckier companions, and wished them good epeed with the best grace we could muster ; and if we betrayed our feelings a little by throwing after them the parting exhortation, '* Mind you don't miss the fif-teen-footer," well, I really think we ought to be forgiven. Casf leton was a married man ; and I must crave the ladies' pardon for omitting in my list of our Julbarri residents the really charming Mrs Caetleton and her fascinating sister, Miss Jervoiee. As soon as the hunters had gone Castleton turned to me and said, " You had better come over and lunch with us, Watson. You'll only be breaking your heart over visions of those two fabulously footed tigers if you lunch at mees alone." I thanked him ; and two o'clock found me receiving the commiserations of the two fair ladies, while they pressed upon me the usual profuse hospitality of an Indian luncheon. We had reached the dessert stage, &nd Mrs Castleton was just pressing me to taate some specially delicious plantains which a neighbouring rajah ha sent her the day before, when the bearer d came in, and, making a salaam, said to Castleton, "A man has just come from that little hamlet of Goree ; he wants the salib log to go out and shoot a leopard which has just killed one of Mr kids, and is now lying eating it in a soiall patch of jungle. Qoree is only a mile and a half from here." We stared blankly at each other. "What can we do?" said Castleton. "Do ? Why, go and Bhoot it, of course !" exclaimed the enthusiasitc Miss Jervoise. "But, Kate, dear," broke in Mrs Castleton, with wifelyasolicitude, " the elephants are all away, and how can they shoot it?" "Oh, I am not thinking about the elephants,' replied Castleton, "but Watson and I have lent all our rifles and guns, and we haven't a single thing of any kind left." "There are the sepoy b' rifles," I suggested "We could take one of them a piece, and, you know, we can't let the leopard get off without having a try for him Can we ?" "Yes, there are the sepoys' rifles, certainly," aeplied Castleton, rather doubt fully ; "but " "And I have got a couple of spears," I interrupted. "Oh, do let ua go at once, before he is disturbed." ..Well— all right, we'll try it," said Castleton, hesitatingly, 1 lost no time in running home and 1 springing into a shooting costume. Castle-

ton sent Ma orderly oil to the lines for our rifleß etc ; and by the time I had returned to- Castleton the orderly reappeared with a couple of rifles and a packet ofcartridgea So a very short time saw us moun'ed on our horses and following our guide out to the little village of Goree. "I am not very sure about the wisdom of thia business," said Casfcleton "Oh, it will be all right," I replied. "We must be careful not to fire until we are pretty sure to kill— that's all." "H'm,"yee<, I puppose so," assented my comrade, somewhat doubtfully. As a matter of fact, it was not an over wiee business. Our regiment was armed in those days with the short two grooved Brunswick rifle, a muzzle loader, of course, and one in which the bullet had to be hammered into the muzzle before it could be rammed down with the rarnro 1. This rendered the prosebs ot loadiug so dreadfully slow that practically it wouid make it quite impotable for either of ua to get more than one shot, and it is no eaay matter to kill a leopard with ono bullet-, however well placed. If he were not killed, he would be pretty certain to charge, and wo should be in an awkward plight. Matter.-? did not loi/k much more encouraging when we reached Goreo. The khubbor wan good enough ; there wa« the place where the kid had been struck, and there weie 'ho drops of blood and footprints of a large leopardleading into a patch of dens© catx -juggle about IUO yardu long and 60 yards broad, and we had very little doubt that ho was in there sure enough. We ar ranged, aomewh'.t rashly, that we would uniur thu junglt) ho ■• r» early opposite ends of the patch and work towards the centre. If either of uy saw rhe leopard, we were, if po^ible, first to whittle and rhen to call oui before ehooring. Wo did this with a double object - firit, that we might not shoot cann other ; and secondly, that if one of us wounded the beast and ho came towards the other we might be on the lookout for him, and not be takon un aware?. So we f op<.ir tted ; and I cautiously entered the UAi end of the patch, while Caetleton made his entrance on the right. My end of rhe jungle was thicker than Caetleton'a ; but the edge was fairly clear, and by paeriug under the brake I could see f^ur or five yards in fiont of me» Vory soon, iho cai>e and bushes became so thick that I had to clear away the leaves with one hand while I held the rifle ready cocked in the other. We had each a sepoy accompanying us and carrying <ur gee ond weapon, the spear. To my man I gave iaptructiona that the moment 1 tired X would hand him back the rifle, and he waa to give me the spear. Of cour-e I kept him behind me, <-o that he should be in no danger. We had not begun our advance more than two or three minutes, and had not penetrated, at our slow and cautious pace, more than about 20 yards, when Castleton whistled. lat ouce stood still. After a slight pause, he called out in a sort of stage whimper, "I see him; but it's a nasty bbot. I can only see his hind-quar-tere, and there is a lot of jungle in the way. Shall I shuot ?" "Fire away," I replied, in an equally melodramatic tone, heartily wishing that hid chance had been mine. In about half a minute the report of Castleton's rifle rang out. It was followed by an angiy roar somewhere from my right front, und there was a dead silence The smoke from ("astldton's rifle camo floating over my head ; but, though 1 listened intently with my rifle half raised to my shoulder, nofc thesound of a footstep or the cracking of a twig oould I hear. At last Castleton called out, '• I've hit him, but not badly, I think ; and he has gone off in your direction." Giving Oastleton time to reload, I againbegau moving forward with even greater caution than before. I had advanced only' a few pices>, when on pushing aside a screen of leaven thicker than usual, and thrusting: my head into a bush, I met a eight that made rr.y heart jump ; there, within six feet of me, crouched the leopard, his eyeballs glowing like balls of green fire in the dark jungle, a look of the most savage mischiof on his face, and evidently just on the point of springing straight at me. Mj firnt impulse waa to throw my rifle to my shoulder and fire at once ; but more quickly than a flash of lightning came the conviction, like a living voice speaking to me, •'If you do, and if you don't kill him dead, jid'll kill you." My nerves eeemtd to grow steady at once, and I checked my first lash impulse Then,, keeping my eye fixed on his, I raised my rifle slowly and deliberately, took a steady aim, and' fired. A dull groan and a desperate convulsion followed, and then in a half minute all was still. My faithful sepoy had duly obeyed my instructions ; he had takon my rifle and had given me the spear, and with this spear held at the charge ready to receive the leopard if he came my way, we waited until the convulaion subsided. Then peering in again, we found that the leopard had gone back ; and it was not until we had advanced some ten yards that we came upon him, lying dead. It shows the marvellous vitality of the feline race ;. far though the ball was a heavy ono, and had crashed right through the brain, yet he had managed to go fully eight yards from where he was crouching. Had the ball been turned aside at all by » twig, or had it glanced off his skull, he would almost certainly have made his spring, and in a jungle so dense I could hardly have hoped to keep him off or defend myself. I called up Castleton at once, and we soon pulled the leopard out of the thicket. We found Castleton's bullet had hit him in the side, but far back, so as not to inter* fere in any way with his powers of attack, I congratulated myself on a lucky escape. The villagers were delighted at the death of j a robber which had more than once laid their backs under contribution, and pressed their services on us to carry him home. A. procession was soon formed, and we returned to Julbarri in triumph with the leopard swung on a pole in front of us. — "Chatnbers's Journal."

"See here, landlord," said an angry tenant, after he had signed the contract for a year, " this house is full of sewer gas." " Yes, that's what I told you." "Told me ?" " Ye 3 ; you asked me if there was gas ift every room, and I said there was." The question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister is to be raised this season in the House of Commons by resolution instead of by bill. The resolution will be moved by Mr Henoage, who has been balloting—sofar unsuccessfully— for a place. A bill will, however, be brought into the House of Lords for the purpose of giving legal^ recognition in Eugland to marriages of this kind which have been contracted in the colonies* io which they are permitted by law. According to the "New York Herald," there is a possibility of John L. Sullivan visiting Australia Sullivan might just as well save himself the trouble, seeing that there is not a good second-rate heavy-weight boxer in the colonies. From Sydney files it appears that Myers won his 1,000 yards match with George as he liked. He had him beaten 200 yards from home. The race was run on a closeclipped, well-rolled grass track, but was nevertheless slow, the time being 2 mm. 18 4- sth sees.