last stage, being the only incidents which served to diversify the monotony of the ride. A long lobbing canter was the pace ridden at, and one horse alone (who unfortunately lost three shoes) suffered from his morning's exercise. TESTIS.

Poonah, April 26th, 1832.

glittering in the sun at my stable door, and a couple of hunters were cut off their usual quantity of gram and water. My dirty old leather breeches, as soft as an old kid glove, were soon ferreted out of their hiding-place, and as I was settling myself into them, I already felt my little Arab flying o'er the hills exulting in the sun's warm rays, his long mane flowing in the breeze, and, as if despising the winds, his tail stretched out behind, offering the gale a thing to hold by. The summons was

soon answered by the avant couriers of their owners' horses and spears, which were all sent on to the rendezvous.

Six riders were soon mustered, and, after discussing the probabilities of a find, a run, and a kill

-some of the party first taking a pull at the mug-away we went. The unfortunate pigs fell victims in anticipation to their rashness in approaching the cantonments; the long plain between the hills could only be certain death to them! Such, or something like it, was the subject of conversation for our six miles' ride. We overtook the led horses at the right place, and we could just see the man's head on the top of the hill, as he stood and watched the pigs below. All right, thought I, as I brandished my spear with murderous intent, giving my gallant bay his head, and allowing him for a moment to revel in his speed. A little hesitation as to the propriety of ascending or keeping below the hill, was at last settled by our getting a little nearer to the sun. One of the party scrambled up the hill, a little on one side of the path, and exclaimed as he reached the top, "I saw them in a bush ;" the man who was on the watch now poised a large stone in his hand, and in an instant it was flying through the air in a straight line for a few bushes below, knocking off the leaves as it

entered the thicket; a slight rush was heard under the canopy of the

foliage, and in another instant, breaking splendidly down the hill, away went-not the hog, gentle reader, but the stone which

SIR,

the man threw in the bush. The happy watchman had had a nightmare at 10 a.m.; the four pigs ran over him, but he could not call to bring them back. HOPE.

I hasten to communicate an account of an uncommonly successful sporting expedition, where the brilliant energies of the gentlemen composing the party (five in number) could only be rivalled by the extraordinary activity, bottom, and speed of the game!

On Sunday, the first day of the present month, the party went out with the full and resolute purpose of dealing death and destruction to "the grim varmints." On reaching the spot, beating commenced, and 17 fine fellows broke, taking away in fine style. right and left across the open country with nothing to stop them. The rushing, the roaring, the screaming, and the shouting, added greatly to the interest of the scene, for every one was instantly at full speed. Of this sounder eleven bit the dust! think of that, Mr. Editor, and let your Deccan dookur-killers pause ere they think of boasting of their feats in the fields-eleven killed by only five people in one burst! by the fist o' my father, I envy the fellows! Returning to the cover, beating again began, and after some time out started a grey monster, grim as "the boar, the mighty boar," as the song says by S. Y. S. (meaning, I suppose, Some Young Spoon). The eyes of every man sparkled with delight as the grizzly monster dashed from his den, and in an instant all were at speed; no start for a race could have been finer, and had the

correspondent I have just mentioned been there, no doubt you would have had a devil of a description of it-"jumping off like kangaroos," and "rushing for the lead" and "flying to the front," and "lunging forward," and all the pretty technicals with which he garnishes his accounts of the Poonah races; all these and many more would have been employed on this interesting occasion. However, as I am no dab at the picturesque or the poetical, you must take my humble unpretending style of stating the affair. After the tremendous brush above mentioned, the field gradually thinned, but the chase never for an instant slackened till half Poonah heard the roar "of his deep death groans," and the other half were instantly told of it for they keep nothing secret here. The maddening exultation which attended this fortunate chase was soon after a little damped by intelligence that five others in the interim had stolen away. However, no way discour aged by this, recourse was had for the third time to beating, and, strange to say, was for a third time successful, and the party were gratified with the sight of seven tolerably large fellows, who really faced the country as if confident of escaping, but they little knew the speed and pluck of their pursuers. After a dreadful run over all kinds of ground, the five gentlemen each singly won a fine head; and night now coming

INTRODUCTION.

"Is it your opinion as a sportsman of the days that are gone, that the spirit of the chase in modern times has degenerated from the ardour of feeling which characterized the deeds of the hunters in those days when you yourself

'Bounding over these hills in proud hopes warm,

Braving alike the sunbeam and the storm' ?"

Such was the question put to me one jovial evening over a cool bottle of St. Julien Medoc, by one of a merry set of devil-may-care youngsters who thought as little of their necks in the field as they did of their debts out of it.

Now, trite though true as the context of the old quotation "Laudator temporis acti" might be in its application towards myself, I could not avoid expressing my real sentiments on the point in question, and therefore regardless of that unpleasant kind of head-shaking distrust and nosescrewing dubitation with which the judgment and inferences of old and worn-out sportsmen are always received by the "post nati' (as a facetious friend of mine denominates the present generation), still I had no hesitation in giving my reply in the affirmative.

Before I mention the reasons which I intend to adduce in support of the preference I have given, I must beg to disclaim the slightest intention of detracting from the fair fame and well known gallantry of those Deccan riders who still keep their right places over the plain, and would sooner crack a collar-bone than crane at a nullah, and who would rather

No, I can assure the reader, gentle or simple, that I had no such unworthy motives for affirming, that in days of yore hoghunting was carried on with a zeal and an ardour which, combined with local advantages (now no longer existing), gave a kind of devotedness to its duties, a dignity to its dangers, and a splendour to its enjoyment, that I think I may fairly affirm the modern sporting cannot compete with.

Among the adventitious circumstances which I have adverted to, no one will hesitate in agreeing with me that the primary superiority of the ancients over the moderns is established by the former having been always led to their wild pleasures and pursuits by the Head of the Society, and when I add that that leader was the Honourable Mounstuart Elphinstone, what modern will not admit the truth of my assumption? What reader will not recall to his recollection the memorable and spirited address of Sir Lionel Smith, in one of his more than usually felicitous speeches when proposing Mr. Elphinstone's health? Up, civilians," said the gallant General, while a sympathetic glow animated his expressive countenance, up, civilians! for he is one of yourselves; up, soldiers for he has shared your dangers and led you to victory; up, sportsmen! for he was the foremost of you in the chase; up, then, up all classes, and let us

66

66

make these walls echo back the name of Elphinstone!"

In the field he ever evinced patience and perseverance during the tedious search for the game. Bold and ardent was he in pursuit of it, and cool and determined in moments of difficulty and danger, joining to all these eminent qualifications for a good sportsman the most affable deportment and the most obliging condescension-a manner and a kindness, indeed, which threw a halo of enjoyment over every party and every pastime.

This, from a man of such acknowledged talent, of noble birth, and high situation, gave, I again assert, a fervour to the spirit of our sport and a dignity to its passion, which must be wanting now. In addition to this advantage, the Union Hunt, composed of the gentlemen residing at the Sungum and the officers at Dapooree, was then in its zenith of success; each member giving in turn his party; the parties taking place once every week; and to them it was a settled arrangement among the members, that all the sporting characters in Poonah, without distinction of rank or situation, were invited.

Each excursion, therefore, assembled nearly forty persons; the entertainments were on the most liberal scale of hospitality, and the fun and amusements of the evenings were sometimes of almost as much interest and excitement as the glorious chase itself. I will confidently appeal to those "friends whom death hath spared," and who partook of our sport, for the truth of this account, and then let me ask the present race of huntsmen, where anything like this is now to be found in the Deccan? Alas! prophetic indeed sounds the language of the author in his farewell address to him, whom he justly

designates "our friend, our patron and our pride."

"The Genius of the Deccan speaks in me. Farewell, great Elphinstone, to sport and thee."

There were others of the party whose merits in the noble use of the spur and the spear were of first-rate order. Who remembers the splendid style of the huntsman, John Jeffrys, when manoeuvring a boar on the precipitous side of Casselsye, without a glow of delight at the recollection? There was also the enthusiastic intrepidity of Captain Close, joined to the reckless dash and joyous daring of one who still distinguishes himself, even among the most fearless of the present race, and is a proud specimen of what hoghunters were in the olden time, since neither age nor increasing bulk (and he was no featherweight sixteen years ago) can even now keep him from the foremost in the fray. I allude to Colonel Henry Pottinger, the present Resident in Cutch, who will not, I am confident, disdain to see his name in the same page with that of his noble patron.

But, while mindful of those who are still alive, let me pay a passing tribute of regard to the memory of those who are gone, especially the late Robert White, the richlytalented and the highly-gifted; an enthusiastic lover of the sport, who breathed his last in my arms at Nuggur, and whose dying words in the moment of insensibility which immediately preceded his last gasp were GHORA LAO;" and to Tiger Davies, than whom a bolder and more honest rider never crossed a country, and who as ardent in pursuit of a sounder as he was cool and undaunted in his conflicts with the royal animal that furnished his

was

cognomen.

66

Such was my feeble attempt to