CHAPTER X.


Kuderent jungle.--Charged by a pig.--The biter bit.--'Mac' after the
big boar.--The horse for pig-sticking.--The line of beaters.--The boar
breaks.--'Away! Away!'--First spear.--Pig-sticking at Peeprah.--The
old 'lungra' or cripple.--A boar at bay.--Hurrah for pig-sticking!

There was a very fine pig jungle at a place called Kuderent, belonging
to a wealthy landowner who went by the name of the Mudhobunny Baboo. We
occasionally had a pig-sticking meet here, and as the jungle was
strictly preserved, we were never disappointed in finding plenty who
gave us glorious sport. The jungles consisted of great grass plains,
with thickly wooded patches of dense tree jungle, intersected here and
there by deep ravines, with stagnant pools of water at intervals; the
steep sides all thickly clothed with thorny clusters of the wild
dog-rose. It was a difficult country to beat, and we had always to
supplement the usual gang of beaters with as many elephants as we could
collect. In the centre of the jungle was an eminence of considerable
height, whence there was a magnificent view of the surrounding country.

Far in the distance the giant Himalayas towered into the still clear
air, the guardian barriers of an unknown land. The fretted pinnacles
and tremendous ridges, clothed in their pure white mantle of
everlasting snow, made a magnificent contrast to the dark, misty,
wooded masses formed by the lower ranges of hills. In the early
morning, when the first beams of the rising sun had but touched the
mountain tops, leaving the country below shrouded in the dim mists and
vapours of retiring night, the sight was most sublime. In presence of
such hills and distances, such wondrous combinations of colour, scenery