15 SEPTEMBER 1860, Page 19

THE OLD SILEKARDT..

THE Madras officer who writes under the nom de plume of "The Old Shekarry," is a capital hand at making a bag, but a very griffin at making a hook. Although his sporting experience is, like Captain Shakespear's and Mr. Dunlop's, of the first order,

and he is fully a match for them in descriptive talent, yet his big volume falls as much below either of theirs in power of pleasing as it exceeds them both in bulk, because lie has smothered his ster- ling matter under heaps of spurious jocosity, and other literary surplusage of the trashiest kind. Before he fulfils the promise implied in the words on his title page—" First Series "—let us hope that he will perceive the inexpedienoy of writing what will be of no use to anybody but the printer and the paper-maker, since judicious readers will be sure to skip it, and the injudicious will wish they had.

There is not much to skip in the anther's second chapter, which relates to hoghunting in the Deccan, and tends strongly to corro- borate Captain Shakespear's exalted estimate of that rather breakneck sport. It is indeed the very best of its kind, the wild boars of the Deccan being unequalled for speed, endurance, and. commo°n, and the ground over which they are pursued being of a na- ture to test the powers of horse and man to the utmost. A famous run, in which the author won the spear, is described by him with great spirit. It must have been a brilliant affair. The field con- sisted of seven-and-twenty well mounted horsemen, among whom were some who were known as the best spears and the boldest riders in the Deccan. Only two of them were in at the death, and one of the two had his horse killed under him by the wounded boar. After this exciting chase comes an account of the pursuit and slaughter of a man-eating tiger, upon whom the au- thor avenged the death of more than a hundred human victims. The Old Shekarry, or Major Leveson as we may call him since his real name appears in his publishers' catalogue, attributes much of his success in tracking wild animals to the extraordinary acuteness of sight, smell, and hearing possessed by one of his syl- van attendants, a Yanadi, with whose tribe he became acquainted in a curious way. Resting one day with a companion under a banyan tree thickly covered with creepers, in the midst of the Chettagunta jungles, he discovered that the tree was tenanted by some animal, which was probably either a bear, a black monkey, or a black panther. Whatever it was he prepared to fire at it, when he bethought him that if it was a bear it could not spring upon him, and that he could fire with more fatal effect from the tree itself- " I accordingly got on to the fork of the tree, and as soon as I got a steady footing. I raised my rifle to fire. Again I put it down, thinking that I might only slightly wound the brute by firing in this way, so I gave the black mass a poke with the end of the barrel of my gun in order to stir it up. Imagine my astonishment when I saw the upper part of a human face and a pair of eyes bob up and then go down again! To hang my rifle on a broken branch and whip out my shekar knife was the work of a moment, and thus armed I clutched the supposed animal by the hair and shouted to

and the rest to come up ; and when the thing I was holding began to moan and struggle, and shortly a curious kind of paws, with huge claws, emerged from below and fastened on my hand, and it was only by frequent blows with the

handle of my knife that I could prevent them from tearing the flesh. At that moment I was not sure whether I had not got hold dame kind of chimpansee or ourang-outang, and I shouted out loudly for help the ahekarries, and coolies soon got up into the tree ; and with their assistance I dragged up from a hollow in the trunk two most extraordinary creatures in human shape. One was old and wrinkled, the other quite a child, and both be- longed to the weaker sex, but whether of the genus man' or 'monkey' I was not at all sure. They were of a dark olive 2o1our, and the tallest was no- thing like four feet high. She just was a beauty, without a stitch of cloth- ing, except a piece of creeper tied round her hair to keep it out of her eyes, which were small, and very piercing when she opened them, but she kept them shut, just taking a peep now and again like a frightened ape. She grunted very hard, and I saw e. couple of tears rolling down her weather- beaten and wrinkled cheeks as the• gang tied her by the leg to the root ot the tree, to prevent her running away. The child hung close to the mother, keeping its face hid in her lap, and I had a dog-chain passed round its aside, and fastened with a padlock to a root also. We looked at them for a long time before we were quite sure whether they were human. I fancied at first that they were some kind of hybrid, for I never beheld such strange objects. The nose was nearly flat, the mouth most capacious, and lull of • The Hunting Ground, of the Old World. By the Old Shekarry," H.A.D. First Series. Published by Saunders, Otter, and Co. large yellow teeth. The arms were long, attenuated, and wizened ; and may Jove defend me from such nails as were attached to the extremities of the digits, which resembled more the claws of a huge vulture, both in colour and form, than any thing else. M— said that the existence of these wild people of the forest had been often questioned, but that he had always be- lieved that there were such tribes, having come across their traces in the dense forests to the south of the Neilgberri Monntains."

Through this adventure, Major Leveson became acquainted with the wild tribe to which his captives belonged, and he afterwards learned that "these aborigines of the forest have been found in all the deepest jungles throughout India, and are called Yanadi, Crumbers, Mulehers, Yaks, Carders, brats, and Coons. They live upon roots, fruit, and any small animal they can catch in the jungle, having no habitations of any kind, but generally living in trees or caves." But this is a very loose statement, and its in- accuracy is proved by the author himself with regard to the Mul- chers of the Combei Jungle who are many degrees higher in the social scale than his Chettagunta friends; though both are far below zero. The former have advanced so far in alimentative know- ledge as to be familiar with the process of jerking venison, and the manner in which they catch spotted deer and antelope is sin- gular and ingenious. Strong pieces of the creeping bamboo, cut off just below the curved stout thorn that grows out of the joint, serve them as hooks, to the shank of which they fasten about eighteen inches of " strong fibre made from the aloe" having a round pebble attached to its free end by "a hole drilled in the centre." The hook is then baited with a small gourd of which both spotted deer and antelope are particularly fond, and is thrown in the runs- " The deer unsuspiciausly begin to eat them, and, finding the string and pebble knocking about, they bend down their head and attempt to break it off by treading on it with their fore feet, or striking it with the hind. In either case, the chances are that the cord gets between the division in the hoof, and, being arrested by the stone, they are irretrievably caught, as the hook fa:stens in the mouth or throat, and the more they struggle the -firmer they are held. They generally struggle so violently that death from exhaustion follows in a very short time, although I have seen both spotted- deer and antelope brought in alive, having been caught in this manner."

The history of elephant-hunting-can hardly have a more peril- ous incident to show than that which befel our author at the foot of the Neilgherries. He had slightly wounded a bull elephant, and was hastening down the bed of a stream to cut him off in his run, when he found himself pursued by the brute which was too close upon him to be escaped by speed. He therefore swung round and dropped on his knee to take a more steady aim-

" On he charged, with a fiendish shriek of revenge; I let him come to within fifteen paces when I let drive, aiming between his eyes (my favourite shot); but whether it was that I was unsteady, being breathless from any run, or that my rifle, which weighed sixteen pounds, was too heavy, I know not; but my left arm dropped the the momentI pulled the trigger (not from nervousness, for I was perfectly cool, and never lost my presence of mind for a moment), and any shot took effect four inches too low, entering the fleshy part of the root of the trunk instead of penetrating the brain. It failed to stop him, and before I could get out of the way the huge brute was on me; I saw something dark pass over me, felt a severe blow, and found myself whizzing through the air ; then all was oblivion. When I came to, I found myself lying on my face, in a pool of blood which came from my nose, mouth, and ears. Although nearly choked with clotted gore, a sense of my perilous situation flashed across my mind, and I strove to rise and look after my antagonist; but he was nowhere to be seen. I picked myself up, and although fearfully bruised and shaken, found that no bones were broken. I was lying on the top of the bank, although quite unable to account to myself how I got there. -In the dry bed of the nullah, I saw my rifle, and after much painful exertion managed to crawl down and get it. The muzzle was filled with sand, which I cleared out as well as I could ; and then, sitting by the edge of the stream, began to wash away the blood and bathe my face and head. Whilst so employed, I heard a piercing shriek, and saw Googooloo rushing toitards me, closely followed by the infuriated elephant, who was almost mad front the pain of his wounds. Luckily, a hanging branch was in his way, and with the agility of a monkey he caught hold of it, and swung himself up the steep bank, where he was safe. The elephant, baulked of his.victim, rushed wildly backwards and forwards two or three times, as if searching for him, and then, with a hoarse scream of disappointment, came tearing down the bed of the nullah. I was directly in his path, and powerless to get out of the way.. A moment more, and I saw that I was perceived, for down he charged on me with a fiendish roar of vengeance. With difficulty, rraiaed my rifle, and, taking a steady aim be- tween his eves, pulled the trigger—it was my only chance. When the smoke cleared away, I perceived a mighty mass lying close to me. At last I had conquered. Soon after this I must have sunk into a swoon, for I hardly remember anything until I found myself lying in my hut, and B- lenning over me."

Our author served at the siege of Sebastopol, and when peace was made he worked off the vexation he felt at its unwelcome ad- vent by a visit to Circassia, in the course of which he accomplished the perilous feat of ascending the great mountain, El-Bruz. Mid- way up the region of eternal snow, when the party had begun to feel the effect of breathing "the difficult air of the iced mountain top," they paused for a few moments.

"The only interruption to the solemn silence that reigned in that high altitude was the continual rumbling and roaring of avalanches, from which attunes our route became extremely dangerous. Once I thought it would be all up with us, as the entire side of the mountain seemed to be giving way, and an enormous MBAS containing thousands of tons of earth and rock, came tearing past us with a roar far exceeding that of the artillery at Sevastopol, increasing in -velocity, and overwhelming everything in its course. It was a moment pregnant with peril, more especially as immediately afterwards, huge boulders of rock and debris broke away and came spinning down the slope as if the invisible gigantic fiends who are said to reside in these re- gions were playing at bowls. However, any companions were Mussulraen and fatalists, and—if my long residence in the East had not imbued me with the same feelings—I was reckless and insensible to fear, for as soon as the storm had passed we continued our route. Another long and tedious fag, and we had attained our object, for we stood upon the 'lower bin!' of the summit of the .El-Bruzi being most likely the first of the human race who had ever set foot upon it The higher summit still towered like a mass of sparkling alabaster some 3000 feet above the crest upon which I was standing; but even had the day not been so far advanced, I could not • basa made any attempt' to-reach it, as a scarped -precipice over 600 feet in depth, an inaccessible glacier, and a ridge of bluff peaks divided us although it looked almost within the range of My rifle. Could I even have descended and made a circuit of the lower submit, the glacier was an obstacle that would have been insurmountable, as in it were stupendous icebergs and wave upon wave of precipitous ridges with steep scarped sides, apparently inac- cessible to the foot of man, which gave me the idea of numberless rocky islands in a tempestuous ocean suddenly frozen. In the valleysand undula- tions between were inaumerable blue and violet streaks, which, with the aid of my glass. I made out to be deep fissures and yawning chasms so wide as to appear perfectly impassable although some seemed arched over with natural bridges of ice. Here and there scattered over the surface, dark masses of rock and fantastically-grouped aiguilles and pinnacles appeared like the domes, spires, and minarets, of far distant Eastern cities, whilst the mas- sive ridges of ice forcibly reminded me of lines of defence and fortifications on the largest scale, the effect of which was somewhat heightened by the continued cracking and breaking of the ice, which often resembled a well- kept-up file-firing, varied by rolling volleys of musketry, whilst at intervals the roaring of avalanches sounded like salvoes of heavy artillery. Those who have not witnessed, cannot conceive the solemn grandeur of the scene then before us, and description can convey but a very faint idea of it. The firmament was of that intensly deep blue peculiar to the waves of the Medi- terranean at certain times, and contrasted strangely with the dazzling white- ness of the eternal snow, which lay spread out like the vast winding-sheet of a dead world. The sun, too, shone with a peculiarly strange unearthly light, more like that of the moon' as if his rays were.not sufficiently power- ful to penetrate the atmosphere. For some time I was too much bewildered and overpowered by emotion to fix my mind attentively on the grand pano- rama stretched before me ; but after a time I distinguished, in the south- east, the lofty peak of Mount Kasbee, towering high above ranges of moun- tains rising one behind another, and diversified with the richest colouring. To the westward, overlooking the ranges of mountains we had passed, lay the blue expanse of the Euxine, glistening in the light of the sun like a sheet of burnished silver ; and far away, in a north-easterly direction, over fields of eternal snow, vast glaciers, and a sea of moun- tain-ranges, intersected by deep, dark, densely-wooded ravines, were the plains of the Kuban, veined by shining rivers. To the south-east, on the verge of the horizon, was a dense mist, which, notwithstanding the dis- tance, I have no doubt hung over the Caspian. It was a glorious sight ; and I remained gazing as long as I could endure the biting cold, notwithstand- ing that I felt half blinded by the strange reflection of the sun from the snow, for the broad peak of my hunting-cap had no effect in keeping out the glare ; and we were each obliged to fasten a strip of my silk handkerchief across our eyes, in order to enable us to see the way."

During the descent, by far the strongest man of the party, a Nubian, who had suffered more than the rest from breathing the rarified air of the summit, suddenly dropped down dead. Major Leveson opened veins in his arms and temples, but could scarcely squeeze out a drop of blood. The heart had ceased to act. His companions "laid him gently down to take his last sleep, on a ledge of rock, where his body would remain as undis- turbed as if buried in the deepest grave, for they' were still far above any indications of animal life."