HUNTING IN THE HTIIALAYA. *
THE reasonableness of Captain Shakespear's dictum, that every Englishman in India ought to be a sportsman, is well exemplified in the person of Mr. Dunlop, whose distinguished services during the Indian mutiny have made his name familiar to his country- men all the world over. It was in the hunting grounds of the Himalaya that he cultivated that promptitude of eye and hand, that fertility of resource, and those habits of coolness and self-. reliance in critical emergencies, which he afterwards displayed so conspicuously in his military career with the Khakee Ressalah, or Meerut Volunteer Cavalry. His chief purpose in writing the book before us was to show cause why the almost endless as- sortment of game " in the Himalaya, should not exist in vain for those who can afford to spend time, trouble, and money on the comparatively poor sport to be found in Scotland. The traveller who leaves England on the 1st of December will find himself on the 12th of February in the Doon, at the beginning of the best season for sport. His expenses so far will have been 1101. for the overland route to Calcutta, ten shillings a day for living there in a hotel, and about 251. for the trip thence up country. His sub- sequent expenditure in the hills will be from 201. to 251. a month. In view of these moderate figures it seems not unlikely that a bad time is at hand for the feral races, both furred and feathered, from the plains of Bengal to Thibet. The English sportsman who meditates an incursion into this exuberant hunting held, will find in Mr. Dunlop's book precisely the sort of information most re- quisite for his purpose, nor will other readers have any reason to complain of its deficiency in general interest, for the author's keen observation has not been confined to sporting objects, but freely exercised upon many curious topics incidental to hill travel.
He begins his survey of the Himalayan region from the rich valley of Dehra Doon at its foot, the haunt of the wild elephant. Great herds of this colossal game go voyaging about in Indian file, and their sudden appearance strikes the natives with abject terror ; for though in a herd they are comparatively inoffensive, the solitary males, which are not allowed to approach the herd by its jealous leader, are very dangerous brutes. The Natives have but too much reason to know this, and therefore they fear all wild elephants, as a scalded dog fears cold water. The unmated males grow savage, or drunk, as the Natives say, at certain seasons, " and sometimes kill all they meet or can catch fora week or two, becoming, however, comparatively harmless when they return to their sober senses." There seems also to be a considerable diversity of natural character in elephants, some of them being gentle and docile in the domesticated state, others wantonly and incurably malicious. An elephant called Gunesh, which once belonged to the Commissariat, is well known in the Doon, being identified by his tusks, the tips of which are sawed off, and by a piece of chain attached to his leg, with which he escaped to the jungle after killing his keeper. Fifteen people are said to have been killed by him in the same number of years, during which he has evaded many a hot pursuit, having a range of many hundred miles of forest and jungle to roam in along the foot of the Himalaya. When Mr. Dunlop was at Mussoorie, another commissariat elephant killed an old woman at the watering-place without the least provocation, and " went on wagging his ears and drinking as if his little practical joke had been a harmless freak of fancy." A native writer, who prided himself on his mastery of the English tongue, thus reported the event to Mr. Dunlop- " Honoured Sir—This morning, the elephant of Major 11—, by sudden motion of snout and foot kill one old woman. Instant fear fall on the inhabitants.
" I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant
MADAR MADAR ox." Many more instances are given of the wanton cruelty of rogue elephants, and there is something horribly human in " the Delilah-like tact with which female decoys will pet and humbug some strong stupid Sampson, whom the Philistines have marked for capture ; " but the innocent rogueries of the infant elephants are a pleasanter subject of contemplation.
" The buchas, or little sucking elephants, of four or five feet high are lu- dicrous little monsters ; they become troublesomely familial after about two days' initiation in the ways of civilized life. A stranger arriving in Howell's camp, and proceeding in all innocency to the quarter where the elephants were picketed, would be immediately subject to examination by those inquisitive little brutes. One of them, perhaps, playfully removing his hat, when, apparently, phrenologically examining his head; while another, with cheerful familiarity, would make him stand on one leg, by winding its trunk round the other. I have known one of them considerably astonish a gentleman, by insinuating the point of its trunk into his pocket, and the suddenness and facility with which it unbuttoned his pantaloons."
There is at the junction of the Song and Sooswa rivers a large
bed of reeds or tiger grass to which the wild elephants repair every year about the 12th or 13th of February, guided by the wonderful faculty they possess for remembering the exact season at which their favourite kinds of food are fit for eating in different places. Mr. Dunlop was once encamped near this spot, when the bellowing of wild elephants was heard about midnight. Every one in camp was soon awake, and the scene they beheld is pic- turesquely .described. "As we tried to peer through the darkness, we suddenly recognized the presence of one great pioneer tusker near our elephants, then moving masses in the neighbourhood seemed to rise and fall. Some large opaque body, which we thought a bushy tree, and scarce noticed, would slide cam solemn * Hunting in the Himalaya; with Notices of Customs and Countries (rein the Elephant Haunts of the Debra Doon to the Bunchowr Tracks in Eternal Snow. By R. H. W. Dunlop. C.B., B.C.S., F.R.G.8., Author of " Adventure, with the Khakee Ressalah." Illustrated by J. Wolf. Published by Bentley. silence, while dim.outlin es of arched backs and trunks moved before us like the dissolving phantoms of a dream. Suddenly, the main body of the herd be the naljungle seemed; to■ take an alarm ; and we heard a long-continued splash as they trooped br our side from acsossthe Sooswa. There was a.gap In the bank near our tents which were about one hundred yards from the stream, and as the leading elephants made for this, we soon saw the whole misty column gliding past us in a blue glamour light, as evenly as objects on the side of a magic Ianthorn—a alight crackling sound, as of straw breaking, being the only one caused by their transit. There were, I should say, at a guess, at least seventy in the herd."
There is hawking to be had in the Boon by those whe have a. taste for that unsatisfactory kind- of sport, and the fishing is ex- aellent, " as good as any in the world." The principal fish are the mahseer—the salmon of that part of the world—and the an- vizi or mullet, which is often killed with the common shot gun as it swims along the surface of the water. The mahseer yields excellent sport and grows to an enormous size, eighty pounds being not an uncommon weight, and Mr. Dunlop heard of some which weighed a hundred pounds. These fish abound during the rains in the Ganges, the Jumna and some smaller streams, but never descend in them below the point to which the stony beds of their upper channels extend. Speaking of the custom of polyandry among the hill tribes, Mr. Dunlop refers to a legend in the old. Sanscrit epic of the Ma- habharata, which tells how five Pandava princes and brothers, engaged in an archery contest at the Court of Drone, and what came of it--
" The character of the reward to be given by the king to the most suc- cessful archer was unknown, but the five Pandava brothers agreed to divide the prize if any of them should prove the winner. The eldest of the brothers, Arkin, was declared victor, and received as his prize the king's daughter, Draupadi, who was doubtless considerably surprised to find that, under the agreement already made by Arjun, she was equally the property of his brothers, or, possessed five husbands instead of one. Arjun and his wife, and her other four husbands also, lived for some years at the fort of Bairath, the remains of which, or rather a Ghoorka structure on thesame side, are still visible on a hill near the north-west corner of the Boon. It is a remarkable fact that the system of polyandry thus introduced, though almost universal in the Jounsar and Bawur pargunnahs, hill districts attached to the Doon, is apparently unknown in the hills of Gurhwal and Kumaon on the east, or those of the Simla superintendency on the west. In the Jounsar district:when the eldest brother marries, the woman is equally the wife of his younger brothers, though the children are by courtesy(?) called the children of the eldest brother. When much difference exists in the ages of the brothers of a family, as, for instance, when there are six brothers, the elder may be grown up, while the younger are but children, the three elder then marry a wife, and when the young ones conics of age they marry another, but the two wives are considered equally the wives of all six. It is also remarkable that wherever the practice of polyandry exists there is a striking discrepancy in the pro- portions of the sexes among young children as well as adults ; thus in a vil- lage where I have found upwards of four hundred boys, there were only one hundred and twenty girls, yet the temptations to female infanticide, owing to expensive marriages and -extravagant dowers which exist among the Rajpoots of the plains, are not found in the hills, where the marriages are comparatively inexpensive, and where the wife, instead of bringing a large dowry, is usually purchased for a considerable sum from her parents. In the Gurhwal hills, moreover, where polygamy is prevalent, there is a sur- plus of female children. I am not aware what effect the practice of poly- galny in Turkey has on the relative numbers of the sexes born, but, so far as my Indian experience goes, I am inclined to give more weight to nature's adaptability to national habit than to the possibility of infanticide being the cause of the di.screpance found in Jounsar.'
Au almost endless assortment of game is not the only attraction the slopes of the Himalaya possess for the enterprising English- man ; the pleasant pastime of money-making may also be enjoyed there to any extent and under the most favourable conditions. The growers of tea at present realize from two to three hundred per cent on their investments ; there is in the Himalaya enough of suitable soil for its cultivation to supply all Europe as well as India, and grants of it may be had from Government for little more than a nominal rent. No charge is made for the first four years, and after them rent begins at the rate of one mina (three halfpence) per acre for the first year, two for the second yyear, three for the third and so on, until the maximum of two shillings per acre is attained. Moreover this very trifling rent is only charged upon that portion of a grant which is fit for the cultiva- tion of tea, and all the rest is held free. Labourers also are easily procured at eight shillings a month, and it may now be expected that the advantages thus offered will not be left long in abeyance, for, since Mr. Dunlop wrote, the Government of India has re- pealed the orders by which civil and military officers had hitherto been prohibited from holding land in India. An influx of planters from home may also be reckoned upon as soon as it comes to be known that any one of them " who can devote his own ener- gies as well as two or three thousand pounds to the trade,. may safely count on two or three thousand a year for the next fifteen years at least," within which period there can be no considerable fall in the price of tea. Another article by which Mr. Dunlop asserts that fortunes may be made, though it has hitherto been atrangely neglected, is a downy wool called pushum, "of ex- quisite fineness, far surpassing- in qualityy, though not in, length of staple, any of the wools of Europe." It grows not only on the shawl-goat, but even on the dogs, wolves, and other animals of Thibet ; its use is known only in Cashmere, but it might be ob- tained in large quantities at remunerative prices, and be made asimportant an article of commerce as alpaca.
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