Pig-sticking in India.--Varieties of boar.--Their size and height.
--Ingenious mode of capture by the natives,--The 'Batan' or buffalo
herd.--Pigs charging.--Their courage and ferocity.--Destruction of
game.--A close season for game.

The sport _par excellence_ of India is pig-sticking. Call it
hog-hunting if you will, I prefer the honest old-fashioned name. With a
good horse under one, a fair country, with not too many pitfalls, and
'lots of pig,' this sport becomes the most exciting that can be
practised. Some prefer tiger shooting from elephants, others like to
stalk the lordly ibex on the steep Himalayan slopes, but anyone who has
ever enjoyed a rattle after a pig over a good country, will recall the
fierce, delight, the eager thrill, the wild, mad excitement, that
flushed his whole frame, as he met the infuriate charge of a good
thirty-inch fighting boar, and drove his trusty spear well home, laying
low the gallant grey tusker, the indomitable, unconquerable grisly
boar. The subject is well worn; and though the theme is a noble one,
there are but few I fancy who have not read the record of some gallant
fight, where the highest skill, the finest riding, the most undaunted
pluck, and the cool, keen, daring of a practised hand are not _always_
successful against the headlong rush and furious charge of a Bengal
boar at bay.

A record of planter life in India, however, such as this aims at being,
would be incomplete without some reference to the gallant tusker, and
so at the risk of tiring my readers, I must try to describe a
pig-sticking party.

There are two distinct kinds of boar in India, the black and the grey.