CHAPTER XVII-Continued. YANGTZE NOTES. III.—KIUKIANG AND THE RIVER AS FAR AS NGANKIN. BY GEO. JAMIESON, F.S.S. K JUKIANG lies near the foot of the lofty mass of hills known as the Lushan ([]), which ANG form a conspicuous object as you get up towards the Little Orphan and the mouth of the Poyang Lake (). Between the city and the mountains there stretch some 5 or 6 miles of low hills, partly wooded and interspersed with cultivated valleys. Though not so well stocked with game as its appearance would lead one to expect, this region contains a fair sprinkling of pheasants, hares and woodcocks, and in the early season before the grass has been completely cut down a very fair afternoon's sport may be had. To the resident in Kiukiang it has the advantage of being readily accessible and for the lover of sport it goes far to reconcile one to the otherwise somewhat monotonous existence in this river port. In the Lushan Mountains wild-pig are occasionally to be found, as their ravages among the villagers' crops testify, but the trouble and labour of getting at them are hardly repaid by an occasional shot, and I believe none have been killed in the neighbourhood for a number of years. An occasional leopard or other wild beast of that nature is sometimes heard of, and I believe a Chinaman was taken to Dr. Underwood's hospital a few years ago badly mauled by an animal which must have been of considerable size and strength. But none, so far as I am aware, have been seen by foreigners, and the reports that reach me are for the most part fictions of native imagination. On the north bank of the river opposite the city there is a long stretch of grassy plain lying between the river and the cultivated fields behind where the migratory snipes are to be found in May and June in great abundance. Further inland on the same side, duck and teal frequent the small ponds in the winter time. On the river itself, here as well as above and below, immense flocks of water-fowl may be seen, especially in a hard winter, but they are so wary that it is difficult to get a shot at them. There used to be excellent shooting ground at a place named Tungliu (), which lies some 60 miles below Kiukiang on the south bank of the river. Even yet, though it has fallen off sadly, like so many other places, a few days very good sport can be had. Tungliu is a walled city which had been almost entirely destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion, and which even yet has hardly begun to pull itself together again. The best show of pheasants is close round the walls, but both above and below from Dove Point downwards for 20 or 30 miles there is fair shooting. The country is easy to work, being low grassy hills with some cultivated fields interspersed. The population is scanty and the people have always been found to be friendly. Further down the river, at the bend opposite Jocelyn Island, which lies 4 or 5 miles below the city of Ngankin, there is a large tract of very good country. It is of much the same character as Tungliu, but the cover for the most part is thicker and rougher and consequently is not cleared off by the country people so quickly as at the latter place which is usually quite bare long before the end of the season. It would be an interesting trip to shoot down from Ngankin to Wuhu. It is said there is great abundance of game near Tatung (), which is one of the stations where steamers stop to land passengers, but not being a place that can conveniently be got at, it has been almost unvisited by sportsmen. The "Wild-boar Hills," which lie on this route not far from the river, probably afford scope for this nobler kind of sport. CHAPTER XVII-Continued. YANGTZE NOTES. IV.-WUHU TO NGANKIN. By A. R. GREAVES. ROM Wuhu for 14 miles in a south-westerly direction the country on each bank of the river is a long chain of paddy-fields, until Sanshan is reached, where ranges of high hills meet together and terminate within a mile or so of the south bank of the river. A few years ago pheasants and pig were very numerous within easy walking distance of the boat anchorage, but now one has to go seeking further afield, as the native sportsman here as elsewhere has of late years been much en evidence. The native hunters in these hills use spears for killing the pig. In the early months of the year, the time selected by the sows for introducing their families to a midnight meal of turnips or young winter wheat, and for imparting to them their final education before turning them adrift in the world to forage for themselves, is the season for "sticking." At dawn the hunters conceal themselves behind boulders, or trees, at the side of the beaten paths by which they know the pig will return to the lairs they frequent during the daytime. Pig when disturbed invariably keep to the beaten paths, never leaving them for the thick cover or open country, and when alarmed will either charge past the danger ahead or charge back on the beaters following them. Parties of beaters start from the fields below in which the pig have been rooting during the night, armed with guns and spears, and either drive the pig past the concealed spears up hill, who "stick" them as they pass, or if the pig turn and charge back, as they often do, shoot or spear them. By these means they either destroy the whole litter or frighten the survivors back into the impenetrable cover of the higher mountain ranges: their object in hunting being the preservation of the crops, not sport or profit from the sale of the slaughtered game. The large sandbanks just above Sanshan, which are dry when the river is at winter level, are the resort during the day time of numbers of wild-fowl-pelican, swan, geese, duck, &c. At Sanshan a late well known Wuhu sportsman in 1891 put up a stag and two hinds of the now very rare Cervus Kopschi but mistook them for goats until they were out of range, but as the natives assert that these deer frequent this neighbourhood usually early in the morning his statement may be accepted as fact, at least until found to be unsupported. The same "sport" once destroyed a buffalo calf instead of the expected boar. From Sanshan the Yangtze bends away from the high range of densely covered mountains until it joins the foot-hills again at Pantzekee, a point conspicuous by its old pagoda. Here may be found a |