CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.
Now shall ye see Our Roman hunting. SHAKESPEARE.
Never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, ev'ry region near Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder! SHAKESPEARE.
At an early hour, Courtenay and his companions started with theirattendants for the scene of action. Several elephants, as well ashorses, had been provided, that the officers might mount them when theyarrived, and fire from their backs with more deliberate aim. In lessthan two hours they reached the spot which they had surveyed the daybefore. The game, which had been driven from jungle to jungle for manymiles round, was now collected together in one large mass of underwoodand low trees, three sides of which were surrounded by the natives, whohad been employed in the service, and who had been joined by manyhundreds from the town and neighbouring villages. As soon as the partyarrived, those who were on horseback dismounted, took their stationsupon the howdahs of the elephants, and collected at the corner of thatside of the jungle at which the animals were to be driven out. Thescene was one of the most animating and novel description. Forty orfifty of the superior classes of natives, mounted upon fiery Arabians,with their long, glittering boar-spears in their hands, and above onehundred on foot, armed with muskets, surrounded the elephants upon whichthe officers were stationed. The people who were waiting round thejungle, silent themselves, and busy in checking the noise and impatienceof the dogs, held in leashes, whose deep baying was occasionallyanswered by a low growl from the outskirts of the wood, now received theorder to advance. Shouts and yells, mixed with the barking of the dogs,were raised in deafening clamour on every side. The jungle, whichcovered a space of fifteen or twenty acres, and which had hithertoappeared but slightly tenanted, answered as if endued with life, bywaving its boughs and rustling its bushes in every direction, althoughthere was nothing to be seen.
As they advanced, beating with their long poles, and preserving astraight and compact line, through which nothing could escape, so didthe jungle before them increase its motion; and soon the yells ofthousands of men were answered by the roars and cries of thousands ofbrute animals. It was not, however, until the game had been driven sonear to the end of the jungle at which the hunters were stationed, anduntil they were huddled together so close that it could no longercontain them, that they unwillingly abandoned it. The most timorous,the rabbit and the hare, and all the smaller tribes, first broke cover,and were allowed to pass unnoticed; but they were soon followed by thewhole mass, who, as if by agreement among themselves, had determined atonce to decide their fate.
Crowded in incongruous heaps, without any distinction of species or ofhabits, now poured out the various denizens of the woods--deer in everyvariety, locking their horns in their wild confusion; the fiercewild-boars, bristling in their rage; the bounding leopards; the swiftantelope, of every species; the savage panthers; jackals, and foxes, andall the screaming and shrieking infinities of the monkey tribe.Occasionally, amongst the dense mass could be perceived the hugeboa-constrictor, rolling in convolutions--now looking back with fieryeyes upon his pursuers, now precipitating his flight--while the air wasthronged with its winged tenants, wildly screaming, and occasionallydropping down dead with fear. To crown the whole, high in the expanse,a multitude of vultures appeared, almost stationary on the wing, waitingfor their share of the anticipated slaughter. And as the beasts threwdown and rolled over each other in their mad career, you might havefancied from the universal terror which prevailed, that it was a day ofjudgment to which the inhabitants had been summoned.
It was not a day of mercy. The slaughter commenced; shot after shotlaid them in the dust, while the natives, on their Arabians, chargedwith their spears into the thickest of the crowd, regardless of the riskwhich they encountered from the muskets of other parties. The baying ofthe large dogs, who tore down their victims, the din occasionallyincreased by the contention and growls of the assailed, the yells of thenatives, and the shrill cries of the elephants, raised, in obedience totheir conductors, to keep the more ferocious animals at a distance,formed a scene to which no pen can do justice. In a few minutes all wasover; those who had escaped were once more hid, panting, in theneighbouring jungles, while those who had fallen covered the ground, inevery direction, and in every variety.
"Very fine tiger-hunt, sar," observed the interpreter to Courtenay, withexultation.
"Very fine indeed: Seymour, this is something like a battue. What wouldsome of your English sportsmen have given to have been here? But,interpreter, I don't see any tigers."
"Great tigers? No, sar, no great tiger in this country. Call distiger?" said the man, pointing with his finger to a prostrate leopard.
Such is the case--the regal Bengal tiger, as well as his rival the lion,admits of no copartnership in his demesnes. On the banks of theimpetuous rivers of India, he ranges, alone, the jungles which supplyhis wants, and permits them not to be poached by inferior sportsmen.Basking his length in the sun and playing about his graceful tail, heprohibits the intrusion of the panther or the leopard. His majesticcompeer seems to have entered into an agreement with him, that theyshall not interfere with each other's manorial rights, and where youfind the royal tiger, you need not dread the presence of the lion. Eachhas established his dominion where it has pleased him, both respectingeach other, and leaving the rest of the world to be preyed upon by theirinferiors.
"Well, Prose, how many did you kill?"
"Why, to tell you the truth, Seymour, I never fired my musket. I was soastonished and so frightened that I could not; I never believed thatthere were so many beasts in the whole universe."
"I am convinced," observed Macallan, "that I saw an animal hithertoundescribed--I fired at it, but an antelope bounded by as I pulled mytrigger, and received the ball--I never regretted anything so much in mylife. Did you see it?"
"I saw a number of most indescribable animals," replied Courtenay; "butlet us descend, and walk over the field of slaughter."
The party dismounted, and for some time amused themselves with examiningthe variety of the slain. The deer and antelopes were the mostplentiful; but, on enumeration, nine panthers and leopards, and fifteenwild-boars, headed the list. Prose and Seymour were walking side byside, when they perceived a monkey sitting on the ground, with a mostpitiful face; it was of a small variety, with a long tail; it made noeffort to escape as they approached it, but on the contrary appeared tocourt their notice, by looking at them with a melancholy air, anduttering loud cries, as if in pain.
"Poor little fellow," said Seymour, apostrophising the animal, "it looksas if it were a rational being.--Where are you hurt?"
The monkey, as if it were a rational being, looked down at one of hishind legs, and put his finger into the wound where the ball had entered.
"Well, now, I do declare," said Prose, "but the poor beast understandsyou."
Seymour examined the leg without any resistance on the part of themonkey, who continued to look first at the wound, and then in theirfaces, as if to say, "Why did you do it?"
"Macallan, come here," ejaculated Seymour, "and see if you can assistthis poor little fellow."
Macallan came up, and examined the wound. "I think it will recover; thebone is not broken, and no vital part is touched. We'll bandage it up,and take him home."
"How very like a human being it is," observed Courtenay; "it appearsonly to want speech--it's really excessively annoying."
"Rather mortifying to our pride, I grant," replied Macallan.
"That's exactly what I mean."
Seymour tore up his handkerchief for bandages, and the monkey wasconsigned to the care of a native. (_Par parenthese_, it eventuallyrecovered; and from the peculiarity of its history, and the request ofSeymour, was allowed by Captain M--- to remain on board of the frigate,where it became a great favourite. HIGH CASTE, on the contrary,disappeared a few days after his reception, having been thrown overboar
dby some of the people that he had bitten, and Captain M--- made noinquiries after him. So much for the two monkeys.)
By this time the natives had collected the game, which was carried inprocession before the officers. The leopards and panthers, which theyskinned and rudely stuffed with grass, in an incredibly short time,leading the procession, followed by the wild boars, deer, and antelopes,each carried between two men, slung under bamboos, which rested on theirshoulders. The procession having passed in review before them,continued its course to the town, followed by crowds of people who hadcome out to join the sport.
"Gentlemen, like dine here?" inquired the interpreter--"soon make dinnerready, but no ab tent."
"Thanks to _you_, doctor, they won't trust us with another. I vote wedine here; for I am hungry enough to eat a buffalo, without anchovysauce--eh, Mr Prose? Let us dine under yon acacia, on the littlemount. There is a fine breeze blowing, and plenty of shade from thetree."
Courtenay's proposal was agreed to, and the interpreter gave thedirections. He then told the doctor, that if Saib wished to seesnake-man, he come now, and bring very fine snake.
The man made his appearance, holding in his hand a small earthen chatty,or pot, in which he had confined the snake, covered over with a linenrag. He exchanged a few sentences with the interpreter, who explainedthat "man not afraid of bite of snake, and if gentleman give him rupee,he let snake bite him--man eat herb, same as little beast that killsnake."
"Oh, that plant that the ichneumon resorts to when bitten," exclaimedMacallan. "This will be a most curious fact, and I must witness it.Interpreter, tell him that I will reward him handsomely."
"How does he catch the snakes?" inquired Seymour.
"Blow little pipe, sar," replied the interpreter, pointing to a smallreed, perforated with five or six holes, suspended by a string to theman's neck; "snake like music."
He then proceeded to explain the manner of taking the snakes, which waseffected by lying down close to the hole where the snake was, and byplaying a few soft notes with the pipe. The snake, attracted by thesound, puts his head out of the hole, and is immediately firmly graspedby the neck, by which he is held until his fangs are extracted, byjerking them out with a piece of rag, held for him to bite at.
"Strange," observed Courtenay, "that snakes should be fond of music, andstill stranger that people should have discovered it."
"And yet it has long been known--perhaps, from time immemorial,"answered Macallan. "The comparisons of Scripture are all derived fromeastern scenery and eastern customs. Do you not recollect the words ofthe Psalmist, who compareth the wicked to the deaf adder, who `will notharken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely'?"
"I recollect it now," answered Courtenay; "from which I infer, that assnakes are not caught for nothing, they danced before King Solomon."
"Perhaps they did, or at least in his time."
The man carefully removed the cloth from the top of the chatty, andwatching his opportunity, seized the snake by the neck, who immediatelywound itself round his arm. Holding it in that position, he rapidlychewed leaves which he had wrapped in the cloth which encircled hisloins. After having laid a heap of the masticated leaves near him, heswallowed a large quantity, and then applied the head of the snake tohis left ear, which the animal immediately bit so as to draw blood. Itwas a cobra di capella of the largest size, being nearly six feet long.As soon as the snake had bitten him, he replaced it in the chatty, andat the same time that he continued to swallow the leaves, rubbed thewounded part with some of the heap which he had masticated, and laiddown beside him.
There was a silence, and a degree of painful anxiety, on the part of thespectators, during the process. The man appeared to be sick and giddy,and lay down, but gradually recovered, and making a low salaam, receivedhis largess, handed the snake, in the chatty, to Macallan, and departed.
"A most curious fact--an excessively curious fact," observed the doctor,putting up his tablets, and a handful of the leaves, which he had takenthe precaution to obtain.
"Now, gentlemen, dinner all ready," observed the interpreter.
The dinner had been spread out on the little mount pointed out byCourtenay. It rose, isolated from the plain, to the height of aboutthirty feet, with a steep and regular ascent on every side. The summitwas flat, and in the centre the acacia waved its graceful and pendentflowers to the breeze, each moment altering the position of the brightspot of sunshine, which pierced through its branches, and reflected onthe grass beneath. The party (consisting of the officers of the ship,the grave deputy, and his immediate suite, about fifteen in number),whose appetites were keen from their morning exercise and excitement,gladly hailed the summons, and seating themselves in a circle round theviands, which were spread under the tree, crossed their legs, after theMahometan custom, and made a furious attack upon the provender.
Macallan, to secure his newly-acquired treasure, hung the chatty, by itsstring, upon one of the long thorns of the acacia, and then took hisseat with the rest. Ample justice having been done to what had beenplaced before them, mirth and good-humour prevailed. Courtenay had justpersuaded the grave old deputy to break through the precepts of hisreligion, and partake of the forbidden cup, in the shape of a tumbler ofmadeira, when the chatty, which the doctor had suspended aloft, by theconstant waving of the tree to the wind, worked off the thorn, andfalling down in the very centre of the circle, smashed into atoms, andthe cobra di capella met their gaze, reared upon the very tip of histail, his hood expanded to the utmost in his wrath, hissing horribly,and darting out his forked tongue,--wavering, among the many, upon whomfirst to dart.
Never was a convivial party so suddenly dispersed. For one, and but onemoment, they were all paralysed; no one attempted to get up and runaway--then, as if by a simultaneous thought, they all threw themselvesback, tossing their heels over their heads, and continuing theireccentric career. Mussulmen and Europeans all tumbled backwards, heelsover heads, down the descent, diverging in every point of the compass,until they reached their respective situations at the bottom of themount; while the cobra di capella still remained in his menacingattitude, as if satisfied with the universal homage paid to his dreadfulpowers.
They all recovered their legs (as they had gained the bottom of thehill) about the same time. Courtenay and Seymour, now that the dangerwas over, were convulsed with laughter--Macallan in amazement--Prose,with his eyes starting out of his head, uttering his usual "I dodeclare"--the deputy as grave as ever--and the remainder, fortunately,more frightened than they were hurt.
One of the native servants put an end to the scene, by reascending thehill with a long bamboo, with which he struck the animal to the ground,and subsequently despatched him. By this time all had recovered fromtheir alarm, and in a few minutes their seats were resumed. The doctor,who was vexed at the loss of his snake, commenced an examination of thebody, and was still more mortified to find that the wily Hindoo haddeceived him, the venomous fangs having been already extracted.
"It is positively a fact," observed he to Courtenay, in ill-humour, "hehas cheated me."
"A most curious fact," replied Courtenay, shrugging up his shoulders,and lowering the corners of his mouth. "Now, Macallan, what's the useof your memoranda about time of biting, appearance of patient, etcetera?Allow, for once, that there are some things which are `excessivelyannoying.'"
The party soon after remounted, and proceeded to the town. The nextmorning they repaired on board, and the queen having, at last, concoctedthe letter of thanks, the _Aspasia_ weighed, and proceeded to Bombay.