and his field sports; for, in our own private opinion, fox-hunting is infinitely superior. Nothing can be more desolate or less inspiring than one of his campaigns against the bears-no trusty horse, no rattling gallop, no socialty, no enthusiasm

we should prefer shooting 'coons and 'possums with our friend Colonel Crockett. Nor are we going to al. lude to Charles Waterton, and his exploits with the alligators. Unpleasant as fox-hunting would be in a country full of stone walls, with a runaway horse, and the scent breast-high, we should consider it the pleasantest of all enjoyments, compared to the rough trot of the Yorkshire squire. Nor are we going to inflict on our readers the pompous descriptions of Hungarian or Bohemian hunting, where wolves are attacked by actual regiments in full military array, commanded by colonels, and led on according to the rules of war. We lay it down as a rule at starting, in the comparison we make, that the sportsmen shall be English gentlemen, and that the sport shall be conducted in the noble and generous spirit that only English gentlemen seem qualified to bring into their amusements, as well as into their loftier pursuits. They shall relate their adventures in their own.language; and, before we are done, we doubt not that Nimrod will have to look sharp to his laurels. We go to our own gallant countrymen in the three presidencies; desiring it to be understood that from the epithet gallant, we by no means exclude the civilians of the service. High courage flourishes in a jacket of any colour. Luckily for our purpose, our friendly neighbour Colonel W., before returning to India, left us his favourite book-three neatly bound, thin volumes-no name on the back, but withal of a certain indescribable appearance, which told us at a glance that they neither contained criticisms nor sermons. We opened one, and on the title-page we saw

"THE ORIENTAL SPORTING
MAGAZINE.

Bombay: Printed for the Proprietors, at the Courier Press, by Shreecrustna Jagonnathjee Prabhoo, Hindoo, of No. 15,

Pallow Street, without the Fort."

And very well printed it is, O Jagon nathjee Prabhoo! considering that you are probably ignorant of Tattersall's

and Newmarket, and that your mother would certainly have been somewhat surprised, if, some fifty years ago, any one had told her that her young Shreecrustna would be compositor in an English press, and set up in types the hair-breadth 'scapes of certain young Britons, whose fathers, perhaps, had quite as little expectation that Jack and George and Tom would go bagging tigers, as yours had of your fingering pica. These, our amiable Hindoo friend! are some of the odd coincidences that our Indian empire gives rise to; and if it is always as beneficial as it has been to you, your remotest posterity will have cause to bless the tight little island. Your press, our good Prabhoo! will put an end to the press of Juggernaut; and as to your widows, for Heaven's sake mention to the young ones, (especially if they have good jointures,) that a lot of us young fellows are coming out by the next steamboat, and we beg they will put off their absurd intention of killing themselves till their beautiful black eyes have had an opportunity of killing us: and with this reasonable request we turn to the body of your Magazine.

No European magazine-not Maga herself-can show a more unexceptionableset of contributors-all jolly, dashing young fellows, souls made of fire, and children of the sun; excellent soldiers, we have no manner of doubt, and unexceptionable residents and judges. However, it is only in their literary and venatorial character we have any thing to do with them; and we pronounce that they give irresistible proofs of the inseparable union that exists between pluck and talent. Cæsar's Commentaries, Napoleon's Bulletins, the Duke's Despatches, do not more completely exemplify the united triumphs of the pen and of the sword, than do some of the graphic descriptions of the Oriental sportsmen those of the pen and spear. The rifle, too, comes in for its share of imperishable renown, as well as of unerring practice; and we know of no individual in our western regions who is so perfectly master of the very difficult art of fighting his battles over again, without inflicting disgust upon the listener. The whole of Oriental sporting seems, according to the Magazine, to divide itself into two great branches: hunting the lion and tiger, on elephants, or, when those movable towers are

not attainable, from trees and hillocks; and hunting the boar with horse and spear. Of these we shall give various specimens, interspersed with a few songs on the delights of such noble sporting, that must for ever put an end to our miserable io pæans over the hare or fox. When we divide Oriental sporting into those two branches, imagine not, O lector benevole ! that all other varieties are excluded. By no manner of means-all is considered as very good fish that comes into the net; not unfrequently you come across a magnificent bear-hunt in the midst of a battue of tigers; ferocious panthers glare out on you from a bush into which you have chased a boar; and, in fact, there is no description of hunting that does not flourish in unbounded profusion in the hills and jungles of the Deccan.

Here is a contribution dated, "Dharwar, March 16:"

"The people sent out yesterday in search of tigers returned without success, but marked down two bears in the hills at daylight this morning. No beating was required; they were lying sound asleep under a high rock, and, as soon as we had taken up our stations so as to surround them, a stone was dropped upon them from above, and away they went at an awkward gallop. I never saw a bear charge before; but the largest of the two, which was hit by the first that fired, turned short round and made straight at the man nearest him, rolling down the hill at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He was stopped by a ball just as he appeared over the head of his intended victim, and scrambled off after his companion, most fortunately for the gentleman whom he intended to favour; for, after firing both barrels, his foot had slipped, and he was tumbling down the rocks straight before the bear, at the moment a lucky shot turned the latter. We gave chase, and after firing, I am ashamed to say how often, the brute got weary of life, and saved us further trouble by lying down to die under a shady bush. Next day, a bear and her cub were marked into the same place, and after being driven from point to point for half an hour, were finished at last. I say at last, for I verily believe fifty shots were fired, and the operator who examined her carcass reported that thirteen balls

had taken effect. The cub was burked by the beaters.

"June 20. Joined R.'s party; they have been out three days, and have had very little sport yet-a hyæna, a cheeta, and one solitary hog, being the amount of their bag. A savage man-eating tigress, with cubs, that had been playing the devil lately, was marked into a date thicket, and we began beating after breakfast, two elephants in the field. The natives told us one of her cubs had been killed by a dog a few days ago, and that she had been very savage ever since. Weexpected, therefore, that she would show good sport.

"The cover was beat for hours without success; she had been twice seen and once fired at from a tree, but the elephants had not yet come into action, when we observed a fresh track leading from the nullah to the plain. It was evident she had stolen away, and our only chance was to follow her up instantly. The ground was soft and the tracks plain; it did not require the eye of a bheel to point them out, for we could see them distinctly from the howdah; and, after urging them forward about a mile, we suddenly came on the tigress in an open field, where there was hardly cover to conceal a hare.

"She crouched to receive the elephant, with her head towards him, and, just as she was rising, a ball hit her in the spine, and quite disabled her. We walked up both elephants within three yards; and I never saw such an expression of devilry as her head presented when she found herself quite helpless in the middle of her enemies. Although her back was broken and she was unable to rise, she tried to die game, and it took at least ten deliberate shots to finish her, for we purposely avoided hitting her in the head.

"June 21. Moved on ten miles to a village where tigers had been doing a great deal of mischief, upwards of a hundred head of cattle having been destroyed by them. A more difficult covert could hardly be imagined. The date-grove in which the tigers had taken up their abode, extended for miles. The trees were so close that an elephant could hardly force his way through them, and the underwood was so thick as to form a covert almost impenetrable of itself. Beating this seemed a hopeless case; but we went to work. The date-trees crashed as the elephants forced their unyielding sides between the rugged stems, and many were levelled to the ground by their heads when a passage could not otherwise be effected. For two days we persevered in wading through the endless mazes of dates, meeting at every step with skeletons of bullocks and goats, relics of former feasts, but without getting a fair view of a single tiger, although once or twice a glimpse was obtained and a snap-shot taken. During the first day's beating a tiger bolted, but immediately returned into covert, after clawing a fat Banian on a prominent part of his person where wounds are seldom dangerous; and this is all that had been seen or done in two days' hard fagging. On the third day the greater number of the party gave it up in disgust; but four of us, having no faith in odd numbers, determined to try once more; and perseverance was rewarded, for five minutes after putting the elephants in, we heard that two tigers had broken away across country, and just killed a

man.

"We were soon at the spot where they were last seen, and found the dead man, although considerably clawed, and very raw and uncomfortable from the stinging application, yet very far from dead, and able to show us the exact spot from which the tiger charged him. A pair of bright green eyes were observed gleaming among the thick branches of a stunted datetree, and a ball straight between them ' put out the light.' We dragged out the carcass and found it to be a small tigress-she had been wounded in four places by the shots fired during the preceding days, which we thought had missed.

"Dec. 10. We mustered about two hundred beaters this morning, to beat up a tiger which we were told always frequented a hill close to our encampment; put them in line at daybreak, and by nine o'clock the tiger was marked down, and surrounded. As we had no elephant, trees were the substitutes; but although there were some high enough to hang a lizard on, not one could be found out of reach of a tiger's spring if he should charge; however, there was no help for it, so we took to our perches, and the tiger was on foot

presently. He was fired at and hit as soon as he broke covert; but instead of making off, as tigers generally do, he turned back and charged slap at the tree from which the shot was fired. Whether he felt weak from his wound, or suddenly lost courage, I know not; for just as he appeared ready to make his spring into the tree, he stopped, turned sharp round, and sneaked away into that covert from which he never moved again. The first man who went up to the spot to see how matters were going on, got severely mauled for his pains. The tiger's teeth met in his arm, but luckily did not break the bone, and he was carried off more sick from fright than his wounds. A second adventurous wight took a peep about half an hour after, and saw the tiger lying on his back very dead indeed. It is quite unaccountable how one tiger is killed by a single ball, even when hit in a spot not considered vital, and another walks away with balls beautifully placed in the shoulder, chest, and other mortal spots, as if invulnerable. This tiger was hit by one ball only, and that passed through the hind quarters. On the 25th, a tiger was announced, marked down, and surrounded in a thick date grove. We took up our station' in a tree directly over his path, and a shower of rockets and other combustibles soon bolted him. From a distance of four hundred yards we saw him descend from the bank into the bed of the nullah, and walk slowly towards us, glancing suspiciously from side to side at every step. He appeared greatly distressed by the heat, and we could plainly hear his laboured breathing, and even see his sides heave as he sulkily approached. Directly under us was a thick brab-tree, brab tree, and we had agreed not to fire till he passed it. Some rustle attracted his attention just as he reached this spot; he halted for an instant, looked up, and seeing us, drew back his head, with a loud growl, so rapidly under cover of the branches, that only one ball touched him. He cantered back roaring towards the beaters, keeping so close to the bank that it was almost impossible to cover him, and I did not believe that one of the shots fired after him reached its mark. We now mounted the elephant, and after a search in the strongest parts of the covert, the mahout saw him stretched at full length on a bare spot within thirty yards of us, quietly surveying our proceedings. The contents of two barrels were into him in an instant; but away he dashed, as if nothing was the matter. He appeared to have gone some distance, and we were quite taken by surprise to find him again within ten paces close under the elephant. Here he made a cowardly irresolute attempt at acharge, and walked off with some nine balls in him, without staggering or showing any signs of weakness, although some of them were well planted. We found him, and hit him again repeatedly, driving him from bush to bush, till sunset, when we began seriously to fear we should lose him. He at last grew desperate, and made a charge, in which he was dropped close to the elephant, dying at the eleventh hour, as he ought to have done at first. Although a fine large tiger, he was one of the worst bred I ever saw.

"While following the fresh tracks of a boar this morning, one of the people marked a tiger into the same nullah where we killed the other day. Fireworks, &c., were immediately sent for from the tents, and in the mean time we pugged up the boar, which gave a beautiful run over ground intersected by nullahs, and did four miles in very fair time, before he was blown and came to the charge. Unfortunately, a spear in the shoulder-blade disabled him from showing so good a fight as he promised to have made. We then returned to the tiger, which in his last moments afforded a scene of which I can convey but a faint idea. I have been at the death of a good many tigers; but never till this day did I see one in perfection. We were seated on a low tamarind-tree, which hung over the nullah, and the tigergalloped under us within ten feet. The first volley dropped him at the root of the tree, where he lay struggling for some time, and ended by rolling into the nullah, which was full of water. Here he suddenly recovered himself, and catching sight of us, who were just out of reach, commenced the most desperate exertions to get at us, roaring and dashing about the water in his struggles. He was a large male tiger, and his enormous head, with his glaring eyes fixed upon us, so attracted our attention, that not one of us could look at his gun while reloading; and before we

a

had finished, the tiger, finding that he could not reach us, had climbed the opposite bank, which was nearly on a level with our seat. Although the breadth of the nullah kept him at safe distance, thick date-tree, with branches to the ground, concealed him here, and he sat watching our motions and roaring incessantly for several minutes, while we crawled from branch to branch to get a view of him. A Pariah dog, which began barking at him, made him more furious than ever. He crashed through the bush, stood for one instant with tail erect, mad with rage, and the next was dropped dead within five paces of us."

These are detached extracts from the sporting journal of a gallant soldier, who gives the initials L. T.; and bet. ter written descriptions, or glowing with a more adventurous spirit, it has never been our good fortune to meet with. It does indeed seem extraordinary, as L. T. has remarked, the difference of vitality between different tigers. Some would positively seem to be en dowed with the nine lives which no philosopher will deny are characteristic of the domestic cat; while others expire under a dose of blue-pill that would scarcely administer the quietus to a rabbit. Yet, on the whole, though some die so easily, we hold the tiger to be somewhat of the nature of an annuitant-a species of animal well known to be more invulnerable than Achilles, and warranted against battle, murder, and sudden death. We have lost a great portion of our respect for the lion; in many instances he turns out a rank coward, with as copious a display of white feather as a Spanish aide-de-camp; his surly look is the mask of Captain Bobadil, as the owl's wise expression always reminds us of a mathematician. Our gallant friends of the Deccan seem to have no great awe of the forest chief;-tiger, hog, panther, cheeta, and even the bison, are very often preferred to that dim discrowned king, who, though he calls himself a lion, we fear is nothing but a pretender. It is only " on Afric's burning shore" that he is an actual potentate, hedged in with the divinity that proves his right divine. In Indiawe blush to apply the word to a lion of four legs, however applicable it is to the species who strut on drawingroom carpets on two-he is a humbug! But as a student of natural history, who takes the humble name of " Bob," justly remarks in a letter to the editor, the animal kingdom in Hindostan seems under a very ineffective police, as it is the easiest thing in the world to pass one's-self off under an "alias." "In the pages of your magazine," he says, " I find the words tiger, panther, leopard, and cheeta applied indiscriminately to designate the same animal. S. Y. S., who ought to know better, gives the two first names in one page to a panther-why not call it a lion at once? Another correspondent in your last number, writing evidently of a panther, calls it a leopard. I believe I am correct in stating that only one species, and that not a true leopard, has been discovered in India, viz. the felis jubata, hunting leopard or cheeta. The rose spot of the panther sufficiently distinguishes him from the leopard, whose marks are either single dots, as those of the hunting cheeta, or clusters of dots, as found on the skin of the African leopard. It is perhaps incorrect to call the cheeta a leopard; for his figure and habits, so different from those of the other cats, and his claws, only semi-retractile, seem to separate him from that family, and make him the connecting link between the genus felis and canis. The bison, found along the range of the western ghauts, is generally described as a buffalo, although as distinct from a buffalo as that animal is from an ox. The samba, which does not bear the most distant resemblance to an elk, is commonly mentioned under the latter name. There are no elks in India."

This we think a judicious letter, and that in future the distinctions between the different animals ought to be more strictly attended to. And yet it is hardly to be expected that each gay Sub. should carry a Buffon or Cuvier at his saddle-bow; and, for all the practical purposes of sport and enterprise, we are prepared to contend that it is sufficient if the animal pursued and conquered be generally known by the name of a leopard, whether it is really a panther or a cheeta. But, however this may be, our impressions of the identity of the various victims of the spear and rifle have received such a shock from the scientific epistle of Bob, that it will be with some diffidence that we shall hereafter, if we have space for it, quote a description

of a lion-hunt-for who can feel certain but that the animal so-called may not be the real Simon Pure after all? And, under these circumstances, we beg to retract any disparaging observations we may have made on the cowardice and pretension of lions in the abstract, and to confine our remarks entirely to the individuals, falsely SO called, in the southern territories of the Honourable Company. After this apology, we shall be able to look on Wallace without a blush. But in the case of the tiger there seems to be no mistake. Courage, power, ferocity-jaws of enormous size, the speed of a racehorse, and a spring of forty feet, mark this animal too distinctly to allow him to be mistaken for any other. Once roused for it requires a little stirring up to put him on his mettle-there is no flinching. Wounded in fifty places, writhing with pain, the great passion of revenge inflates his brutal heart, and he dies with foam covering his hideous lips, and rage gurgling in his horrid throat. We have attended the execution of several cats in the days of our youth. Their expression when wounded, and showing fight against the terrier was sufficiently savage; but imagine what it would be in a monster a hundred times the size, that had never had the slightest taste of civilized life-never fallen asleep on a hearthrug, nor lapped milk out of a saucer! -a scoundrel whose whole existence was a scene of murder, and whose natural good disposition, if he had been born with the temperamentofa Howard or a Heber, must have yielded to the influences of undying hunger and unquenchable thirst! Accidents are, of course, not uncommon in tiger-hunting, and many admirable descriptions of them occur in the Magazine. We have only room for the account of the misfortune of Khundoo, the chief of the bheels, in a certain hunting expedition in Candeish:

"Poor Khundoo, the leader of this choice band, had gone in pursuit of an immense brute, the terror of the neighbourhood, and the very animal which but last year dreadfully mauled one of a party of officers who had gone after him on foot, and killed a bheel beside him dead on the spot. The haunts of this immense brute were well known, and but the day before he had killed, close to each other, two very large buffaloes in the Moolleir Valley. Poor