Chasseur

“ Conversing much in the same strain, the eight chasseurs arrived at the rendezvous, where they dismounted. The beaters and gardes-de-chasse were all at their posts, and on the alert to the movements of the boar, and as we advanced deeper in the forest, the conversation, which had been so lively on our setting forth, flagged, and at length subsided into an occasional remark on the obstacles which impeded our progress. Nothing renders a man more reserved than his approach to an anticipated danger. I looked askance at Adolphe, and saw that his teeth rattled like castanets ”

“ They were merry and handsome young sparks of the chasseurs, and I plied them well with the contents of half-a-dozen pigskins, until they could scarcely stand, and then led them here for their repose; and they all four slept upon this very pallet. ”

“ Now, kind reader, prepare to mount a generous, full-blood Virginian hunter. See that your gun is in complete order, for hark to the sound of the bugle and horn, and the mingled clamor of a pack of harriers! Your friends are waiting for you, under the shade of the wood, and we must together go driving the light-footed Deer. The distance over which one has to travel is seldom felt when pleasure is anticipated as the result; so galloping we go pell-mell through the woods, to some well-known place where many a fine buck has drooped its antlers under the ball of the hunter's rifle. ”

“ It is all over now and silent as the grave, save when a wandering party of pleasure-seekers penetrates here, as we have done, or the hunter climbs the rocky peaks in search of deer or a stray grizzly bear, and awakes the mountain echoes with the sharp crack of his rifle. ”

“ In an instant he knew that for the first time in his life he was listening to the roar of a lion. The whole air seemed to vibrate, and all around him when silence reigned the air seemed heavy until the roar broke out again.
The engineer heard a step behind him, and on turning his head he found his trusty body servant fully armed. The native, who was an experienced hunter, knew that his master had gone out without his rifle and that he might be in danger at any minute. "Let us lie down," said the native, "and we shall see the king. May be you will get a shot at him." ”

“ Or you hear suddenly the hollow, eager, violent barking of dogs; scared deer flit past you through the fringes of the wood; then a man or two running, in green blouse, with gun and game-bag on a bandolier; and then, out of the thick of the trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. Or perhaps the hounds are out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through the clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. ”

“ I have frequently crawled up to the animal for miles through the tall grass with the utmost exertions, and lain down on a small mound near him, with the resolution of creasing him, as the hunters call it—that is to say, sending a ball through the skin of a horse's neck, upon which it falls as if struck dead, and you have time to hobble it before it recovers. But when I raised the rifle on the noble creature, and had my finger on the trigger, it seemed to me to be murder, and I could never make up my mind to fire. ”

“ STILL-HUNTING.Still-hunting is a more arduous business. The hunter has the work to do of finding the deer; his rifle must slay it; if he wounds it, he must follow it on foot; the only help he can get is that of one steady old dog, which must never stray from his side.
Starting from his camp in the early dawn, he mounts the hill-side, carefully examining each likely spot of brush as he passes it, taking special note of each sheltered patch of fern. Very carefully he climbs the logs, avoiding every dead branch that may crackle under his weight, and parting the brush before he pushes through. ”

“ A young hunter standing on the threshold, leaning on his rifle, a brace of wild turkeys hanging over his shoulders, half a dozen rabbits dangling from his belt, stared at her through the dull, red glow of the fading fire in amazed agitation. ”

“ The hunters are all mounted; at the signal given, they fall upon the herd, which is soon dispersed; each one chooses his own animal, for he who slays the first is looked upon as the king of the chase—his aim must be sure and mortal, for the animal, when wounded, becomes furious, turns upon his hunter and pursues him in his turn. We once witnessed a scene of this kind. A young American had the imprudence to swim over a river and pursue a wounded buffalo with no other weapon but his knife. ”

“ BEAR HUNTING. At day-break the next morning I took the boat, and went on shore to join a party that, as I had been informed the preceding evening, was going a bear hunting. On landing, I found the men and dogs ready, and having loaded our guns we advanced into the woods. The people here, as in the back parts of the United States, devote a very great part of their time to hunting, and they are well skilled in the pursuit of game of every description. They shoot almost universally with the rifle gun, and are as dextrous at the use of it as any men can be. ”

“ We will hunt the nimble deer with you, and show you where the mighty eagle roosts, and where the fish with shining scales abides. If you come painted, your war-pipe filled, your bow bent, your arrow sharp and barbed, your heart strong, and your cry loud, we too will paint ourselves; we will smoke our pipe of war, we will bend our bow, make sharp our arrows, and stout our hearts, and will cry our war-cry, till the startled heron shall wing his way from the swamps to his hiding-place among the hills, and the deer shall escape from the open space to the tangled covert. ”

“ On the American Continent a sport known as fire-hunting is much followed. This mode of hunting is prosecuted at night. The hunter provides himself with a rifle, an old frying-pan, fastened to the end of a pole, and a good supply of resinous pine knots. These he ignites in the pan, and as the bright flame leaps up, he watches carefully for the gleam from the eyes of the deer amongst the dark shadows of the forest. ”

“ Over the platform bears and men went rolling and struggling, in the wild battle of life and death. Through the trees, and into the deep drift, staining the snow with their mingled blood! Here, two or three men were engaged with a single foe—there, some brave hunter stood battling alone. ”

“ The wild deer bounds through the forest, and the hoarse bay of hounds, the encouraging shout of the huntsman, and the shrill report of the deadly rifle are sounds that frequently meet the traveler's ear. ”

“ We swam the streams together, hunted deer and small game, and at night sat under the stars by the camp fire, where in a simple way we talked of old heroes, the worlds above us, and his theories of the life to come in the land of plenty, where the bounding deer and the mighty bear met the hunter with his strong bow and swift arrows. ”

“ The hunters, who had viewed the chase from the side of the hill, and had been hallooing joyously on witnessing the pig, horse, and me tumble into the ditch, were greatly amused in aiding me to remove the thick coating of grey mud which shrouded my person, my gun, and the body of my horse.
On another occasion, when a very large boar, slightly wounded, was making up the side of a rocky hill, bare of bush, a strange Moor, with a long gun, who had joined the hunt, ran along the open to a narrow path where the boar would have to pass, and squatted down to pot him. ”

“ I was hunter enough to know the signification of this sound. It was the game—bird or beast—that had fallen from a tree.
An American must have fired that shot; but who? There were only three or four of the rangers who carried the hunter-rifle—a very different weapon from the “regulation” piece—old backwoodsmen who had been indulged in their whim. It might be one of these.
Without hesitation, I headed my horse for the spot, and rode as rapidly as the underwood would permit me.
I kept on for five minutes or more without halting. ”

“ Knights and ladies, with feathers in their caps and hawks perching on their wrists, rode gaily through the wood; dogs barked, and the huntsman sounded his bugle.
Then came foreign soldiers in bright armour and gay vestments, bearing spurs and halberds, setting up their tents, and presently taking them down again. Then watch-fires blazed up and bands of wild outlaws sang, revelled, and slept under the tree's outstretched boughs; or happy lovers met in quiet moonlight and carved their initials on the grayish bark. ”

“ I have brought my hunters, who are brave and trusty men, to serve you as scouts and spies. In your front and in your rear, and on either hand, we will scour the woods, and beat the bushes, to stir up the lurking foe, that your gallant men fall not into his murderous ambuscade. To us the secret places of the wilderness are as an open book; in its depths we have made our homes this many a year: there we can find both food and shelter. We ask no pay, and our rifles are all our own. ”

“ For an hour we feasted sumptuously, and many a tale was told of archery and of the deer hunting of olden days, when, as I learned from the talk of my elders, men were taller and stronger and of keener eye than now, and such craft of the bow as Elbert and Old Marvin had that day displayed was the boast of many archers in any goodly company. ”

“ How, with scent keen and eager as beagles,
They hunted him down for the fight.
Hark! through the gorge of the valley,
'Tis the bugle that tells of the foe;
Our own quickly sounds for the rally,
And we snatch down the rifle and go.
As the hunter who hears of the panther,
Each arms him and leaps to his steed,
Rides forth through the desolate antre,
With his knife and his rifle at need.
From a thousand deep gorges they gather,
From the cot lowly perched by the rill,
The cabin half hid in the heather,
'Neath the crag which the eagle keeps still ”

“ One of the first bits of advice which an old, experienced Indian hunter gives to a young hunter, be he white or Indian, who goes out anxious to kill a bear, or who may possibly while hunting for other game be attacked by one, is to get his back up against a tree so large that if the bear is not killed by the bullet of his gun, he may be in the best possible position to fight him with his knife. ”

“ Long-used rod and gun suggest many a tale of past adventure as they bring to mind recollections of days of sport such as may never come again. The great logs in the fireplace might tell, if their flaming tongues were given speech, of camps made long ago beneath their lusty [16] branches, and of such noble game as we shall never see,—moose, elk, deer, panther, wolf, and bear, which are but spectres in the shadowy forest of the past. ”

“ My whole life had been passed in wild sports from early manhood, and I had imagined that I understood as much as most people of this subject; but here were men who, without the aid of the best rifles and deadly projectiles, went straight at their game, and faced the lion in his den with shield and sabre. There is a freemasonry among hunters, and my heart was drawn towards these aggageers. ”

“ The hunter, however, nowise intimidated, approaches the object, sometimes so near as to discern its form, when raising the rifle to his shoulder, he fires and kills it on the spot. He then dismounts, secures the skin and such portions of the flesh as he may want, in the manner already described, and continues his search through the greater part of the night, sometimes until the dawn of day, shooting from five to ten deer, should these animals be plentiful. ”

“ The ruffled grouse may be called the king of our Northern game birds. Delighting in mountains and thick swamps, wild, and strong of wing, the hunter who brings one down when under full headway must be of steady nerve, quick sight, and skillful with long practice.
If a modern artist were to draw a sketch to illustrate an article on our hunting season, it would have to differ very much from the pretty picture on the preceding page. The spear and cross-bow are weapons unknown to modern American hunters, and instead of the winding of the horn, there is only the shrill note of the dog whistle. ”

“ The wildness of the region and the proximity to the desert demanded strong, stalwart shepherds, inured to hardship, keen to detect the presence of a foe, quick to repulse the attack of wild beast or lurking Arab robbers, and tender in their care of the young and the injured. Among these silent, treeless hills or beside the occasional spring, the traveller to-day meets this type of shepherd, silent and resourceful, armed with his short, heavy, wooden staff. ”

“ We enter a track in the forest, and thread our way to one of the clusters of homesteads, passing herds of goats and flocks of horned sheep, or disturbing a troop of horses or small short-horned oxen, or stumbling upon a swineherd tending the hogs in their search after roots. We should probably have to defend ourselves against the attack of some of the large dogs, used as guardians of the flock against bears, wolves, and foxes, and for hunting the wild animals. ”

“ Much of the charm of hunting consists in the style, grace, and neatness in which it is done. Hunting must be a pleasure to the eye; it should be picturesque and in harmony with nature. The woodland or valley [Pg 85] should echo back wild music, and the huntsman’s horn and the whip’s halloo should delight the ear and warm the blood. A badly-assorted pack, of all shapes and sizes, some of which carry a head, and others with a strain of Southern blood, as line hunters, might give more sport and kill more foxes than a better and handsomer pack of hounds. ”

“ We travelled slowly that they might overtake us, amusing ourselves by discharging our rifles at the ravens or vultures which soared above our heads. Sometimes we diverged a little from our path, to get a shot at the deer, which we now and then saw standing at a little distance, gazing with surprise at our appearance. ”