Clive Phillipps-Wolley

“ It is most amusing to watch a young stag calling, the way he swaggers before his lady-love, tearing up the turf with feet and horns as if nothing could drive him from her, till his challenge is answered by a deeper note, when the youngster curls up at once, flees for his life to the thickest scrub he can find half a mile away and cowers among the bushes, while his mate in the most matter-of-fact way at once attaches herself to his lordly rival, who comes swaggering easily along the hillside with the sunbeams glancing from the burnished points of his glorious antlers. ”

“ By the time you have reached the vicinity of the deer, the rays of the rising sun are tipping with a rosy tinge the high snow-clad peaks which form your horizon overhead, and the time when ‘shooting light’ will enable you to finger your trigger is near at hand. If the clearing on which the deer are disporting themselves—as yet only faintly outlined forms—is a large one, you will have more difficulty in getting close to your quarry than if it happens to be merely a glade or park-like opening in the forest. ”

“ Wild and beautiful as they are in their way, it is not in the deep mountain gorges at the head of the Kuban, nor in its vast reed beds, neither is it in the rich forests of Circassia, or the dreary steppes of the Mooghan, that the true spirit of the Caucasus dwells, and the finest sport of the country makes slaves of natives and aliens alike.
Round the Mamisson Pass, in the wild and beetling precipices of Svânetia, wherever nature is most cruel and most forbidding, lives a race of men to whom, not only luxury, but every ordinary comfort of the most primitive forms of civilisation, is unknown. ”

“ Save time whenever you can, for unavoidable delays are all too frequent with a pack train. A cayuse is not as other horses are. When you have sought animals sorrowing, in the chill dawn, and found them hiding, in a long line one behind another with their heads down, behind a bush no bigger than a respectable cabbage, or have watched your bell-horse roll his bell in the sand, shake himself to see if it will ring, and then trot away contented, you will know more about cayuses, and agree that they are the hardiest, most sure-footed, and ‘meanest’ of all created beings. ”

“ The first rule in hunting mountain game is, that if you want to get near them you must hunt them from above. A few hawks, an occasional eagle, and the great snow-partridge are the only living things which share the mountain peaks with the tûr, and from these they have nothing to fear. But watch them before they lie down for their midday siesta, and you will see how they stand and stare from their dizzy resting-place down on to the lower slopes of the mountain; notice, too, how the old solitary rams choose their beds on some narrow ledge commanding every possible approach from the lowlands. ”

“ If the truest sport is that into which most dangers and most hardships enter; in which the odds are longest in favour of the quarry and against the hunter; in which the sportsman hunts for the love of the chase alone and not as a pot-hunter, still less for any reward of ‘filthy lucre,’ then is the ragged Ossete a prince amongst sportsmen. Unless Nature has given a man a good head, the mere sight of the Ossete’s hunting-ground is enough to turn him dizzy. ”

“ I believe the members of the Yarkand Expedition can claim ‘first blood’ amongst Englishmen.
As I looked at those old rams, some browsing, some lying down, my thoughts wandered back a dozen years to when on the slopes of that stupendous Nanga Parbat in Astor on a misty morning in May, three ibex (the smallest 38 ins.) bit the dust. Again my imagination jumped forward to an autumn in the ‘Frosty Caucasus’ when three right royal red deer stags fell in almost as many seconds. On occasions like these one’s thoughts are always rose-coloured. It is only the red-letter days which come forward. ”

“ One word of advice in conclusion: when a bear is crossing in front of you, there is no time to lose if you have—if only for a second or two—the clear space between you and him, which you ought to try for. Two seconds before he ‘opens,’ he will be sheltered from your fire in the thicket to your right, and in two more, if you hesitate, he will be out of range again in the trees to your left; and if he is coming straight to you, aiming is not as easy as may be supposed. The poor brute goes floundering along, with a pitching motion not unlike that of a waterlogged ship in a heavy sea. ”

“ But, alas! the rising morning mist still hid the lower portion of the vast amphitheatre-shaped declivity. What wonderful effects do not those fleecy clouds produce as, drifting from pinnacle to pinnacle, assuming every minute different fantastic shapes, they finally begin to melt away, disclosing as they do so bit after bit of the details of the sublime landscape! When the base of the cliff at last became visible, I saw, somewhat to my surprise, quite a number of chamois congregated and evidently made uneasy by some sign of danger which was invisible to me ”

“ Probably the first things that the sportsman will see will be a herd of chital trooping quietly past his tree, or he will hear an irresolute tread among the dry leaves coming closer and closer, till the head of a peacock peers round a bush, instantly detects him—for no man ever yet hid from a peacock—and the bird scurries off with a squawk. A bear may come shambling by, or a panther walk right under his tree, but the first shot must be reserved for the tiger ”

“ In the great reed beds in which they used to lurk waiting until the men of some native ‘aoul’ went out to harvest, that they might give the village to sword and flame, these same scouts wander to-day, grey as the boars they hunt, rough, savage, and uncouth as their quarry, wounded probably in a score of places, but silent-footed, enduring, and as well acquainted with every game path in the reeds as the very beasts which made them. ”

“ And when finally, with palpitating heart, every fibre in your body set, you have approached your noble quarry, surrounded as you must ever remember he is by keenly watchful members of his harem, brace yourself by a supreme effort for a steady aim; a good stag is worthy of your very best effort. And if you are a true sportsman, and not merely a slayer, stay for a brief moment or two before you end that life, the finger pressing the trigger. ”

“ It is to their hunting-grounds that a true sportsman’s eyes will always turn from plain or forest; to the region of desolate ironstone peaks by the snow-line and above it, where, amidst the chaos of an unfinished world, the tûr and the ibex, the chamois and the mountain goat, share the solitudes with the vultures and the Ossetes or Lesghians. ”

“ Starting out from your hut, which has given you a welcome night’s shelter, an hour or so before dawn, accompanied if you are a novice by a keeper, you pursue your way silently and noiselessly towards the spot where your quarry has been betraying his presence by lusty notes. Only practised ears can tell exactly where that spot is, for there is nothing more deceptive than the roar of a stag. At one time it seems scarce a quarter of a mile off, two or three minutes later it will sound thrice that distance away, caused by the stag sending forth his challenge in the opposite direction. ”

“ Walking along a ridge or a hillside you hear a sharp hiss: up jumps a brown beast some fifty yards off, gallops twenty yards, and stands for a second to gaze; you fire, and it rolls down the hill; you climb down congratulating yourself—a clean kill!—a single beast—surely a real good head this time—but when you reach it, too often it is another luckless nanny. In chamois the buck is more heavily built than the doe, is darker in colour, and has a ruff of long black-brown hair along the back, but it takes years of practice to tell an old doe from a buck, especially in winter. ”

“ A great many of the large forest trees were magnificent limes which supported quantities of wild bees, of which there are so many in the forest that men were employed to rob the nests of the honey. M. Campione explained to me in a whisper that they were trying to drive the aurochs past me, the wind being light from the front. We waited in perfect silence for about half an hour, and then I heard the breaking of sticks and crashing of branches, as the herd approached at a gallop. Across the clearing they came, heading to pass me on the left across the small glade. ”

“ I notice that if a rare mistake does occur and the dog goes the wrong side of a tree, the Lapp, even when holding the leader, will never pass the end round the tree as some hunters do, but always pitilessly compels the dog to dodge back to the proper side and free the line himself. The slightest, almost inaudible, sound with the lips is enough to send Passop to the front full of subdued eagerness, and a turn of the wrist to bring him to heel. ”

“ There is another phase of hunting. When the darkness of an Arctic winter has settled down on the ice fields, wrapping some ice-bound crew in its pall, then one of the few excitements which is granted to these men, left out of the light and warmth of the world, is the silent coming of some old white bear. ”

“ Too often the drivers are armed with guns and rifles, and I have vivid recollections of spending an animated twenty minutes lying flat on my stomach with Remington rifle-bullets whistling overhead, and an excitable brother sportsman dancing to and fro with a double-barrelled rifle at full cock, jumping to fire at the first thing that stirred. I prefer less excitement, and less motion in the play. There is another method of hunting the bear, when he has hibernated in the den he has found during the autumn, carefully composed of moss and dry leaves, under some rock or tree root. ”

“ Fourthly, that there is the obligation, if not invariably yet nearly so, to kill whatever beast the hound has succeeded in stopping, be it a young bull with insignificant honours or a cow with a calf in tow. The Swedish hunter never gives quarter; his immutable doctrine may be summed up in the words, ‘Meat for the man, and blood for the dog.’ He will not risk disappointing his hound and perhaps ruining his staunchness, nor will he, if he can help it, stultify the whole raison d’être of the chase, nor forego his hankering after the flesh-pots. ”

“ To this day I occasionally hear Scandinavian Nimrods express much incredulous astonishment at the fact that an Englishman has been known to spare a well-grown bull with an insignificant trophy, or a big cow. Quite recently, however, Norway has been invaded by a large number of German sportsmen also bent on the pursuit of the elk, and from all accounts these gentlemen, keen and energetic as they all undoubtedly are, are not, as a rule, prone to err on the side of declining chances. ”

“ That ‘the reward lies not in the prize but in the race we run’ is probably more true of sport than of any other pursuit, and yet even in big game shooting there are prizes to strive after which serve at any rate to remind the winners of the races they ran to obtain them. To the man who has won them fairly, the mighty antlers and fierce masks which hang in his hall or study are treasures beyond price. As to the men who buy such trophies, they are not of our guild, nor is it easy to comprehend them or their motives. ”

“ How unjust that this animal, which passed the greater part of the year on Tyrolese soil, should, because it happened to stray across an invisible boundary line, become the property of the King, just at the very time when the big royal chamois drives would, perhaps, cause him to run up to the rifle barrels of some pampered sportsman sitting on his camp-stool behind a bush, and anything but deserving the luck of bagging such a rare old buck, who was worthy of the hardest stalk man ever had! ”

“ The call of a distant foe has just struck the ear of the gallant champion, and with virile impetuosity he steps forth from the circle of graceful hinds to hoarsely answer the challenge to mortal combat. His head is thrust well forward, his shaggy neck distended to twice the natural size, his antlers of noble sweep are thrown well back, one of his forefeet is angrily pawing the ground, whilst his hot breath issues from his nostrils and open mouth upon the frosty air like so much steam ”

“ But men define sport differently. To those whose ambition it is to kill really wild game in a wild and savage country in which they will get but little help from any but their own right hands, to them I say, try the high solitudes round Elbruz and the ironstone ridges of Svânetia.
The best time for sport in the mountains is the end of June, July, August, and the first week in September, after which another month may be spent profitably hunting bear and boar in the chestnut forests on the Black Sea; for aurochs the hunter should be in the sylvan labyrinths at the head of the Kuban in August. ”

“ Fine weather does not always, however, attend these occasions, for October in the Alps can make itself very disagreeable, with snowstorms and fierce gales that drift the snow in great heaps round one on one’s post, turning one’s body into an icicle, and cramping the fingers, so that aim at even the shortest distances, as the mistily outlined game flits past one in the driving snowstorm, becomes strangely uncertain. ”

“ Be this as it may, an old markhor swaggering along a ledge on a precipitous hillside, with his long black beard and white mane floating down to his knees, showing off every inch of his beautiful horns—as no beast knows better how to do, except perhaps a really big stag in the rutting season—is one of the most glorious sights in the Himalayas.
The Astor markhor
The beast looks such a gentleman with his lean head and small ears, his powerful back and quarters, and his dignified carriage. ”

“ It is for sport alone that the best of them still live, and their one sport is the chase of mountain game.
With a skin of sour milk over his shoulder, and a few thin cakes in his bashlik (hood) , the Ossete will disappear for days and days among the crags which overhang his miserable home. To him the ironstone rocks are as familiar as Piccadilly to a Londoner, and wherever dark or the mountain mists may catch him, he knows of some lair under a boulder where he and his predecessors have passed many a night before. ”

“ Where there is much forest or brushwood, field-glasses will be found of the greatest use in searching between the foliage and stems; for in spite of their size elk are astonishingly difficult to detect, even in low covert and by the most practised eye. Moreover, in the shadow of a wood various objects will often bear so strong a resemblance to a motionless elk, that even eyes as keen as those of my Lapp hunter, whose quickness and strength of sight are remarkable, are frequently unable to determine their real nature without reference to the glasses. He always carries a pair of his own. ”

“ From what has been said it will be clear that elk hunting with the loose dog is a manly, noble sport, fitted in reality for those who have youth, activity, and decided staying powers. At the same time the race is not always to the swift; experience, cunning, and knowledge of country will effect a great deal, and under certain conditions the elderly hunter may achieve some success; but if the elk really means running, he may as well confess at once that he is not in it, and sit down and light his pipe. But I strongly recommend him to turn his attention solely to stalking with the leash-hound. ”