The old boar was quite blown, and took in the altered aspect of affairs at a glance; he turned to charge, and we loudly called on Mac to ’clear out.’  Not a bit of it, he was too excited to realise his danger, but Pat fortunately interposed his horse and spear in time, and no doubt saved poor Mac from a gruesome mauling.  It was very plucky, but it was very foolish, for heavily weighted with boots, breeches, spurs, and spear, a man could have no chance against the savage onset of an infuriated boar.

In the long thick grass with which the plain was covered the riding was very dangerous.  I remember seeing six riders come signally to grief over a blind ditch in this jungle.  It adds not a little to the excitement, and really serious accidents are not so common as might be imagined.  It is no joke however when a riderless horse comes ranging up alongside of you as you are sailing along, intent on war; biting and kicking at your own horse, he spoils your sport, throws you out of the chase, and you are lucky if you do not receive some ugly cut or bruise from his too active heels.  There is the great beauty of a well trained Arab or country-bred; if you get a spill, he waits beside you till you recover your faculties, and get your bellows again in working order; if you are riding a Cabool, or even a waler, it is even betting that he turns to bite or kick you as you lie, or he rattles off in pursuit of your more firmly seated friends, spoiling their sport, and causing the most fearful explosions of vituperative wrath.

There is something to me intensely exciting in all the varied incidents of a rattling burst across country after a fighting old grey boar.  You see the long waving line of staves, and spear heads, and quaint shaped axes, glittering and fluctuating above the feathery tops of the swaying grass.  There is an irregular line of stately elephants, each with its towering howdah and dusky mahout, moving slowly along through the rustling reeds.  You hear the sharp report of fireworks, the rattling thunder of the big doobla or drum, and the ear-splitting clatter of innumerable tom-toms.  Shouts, oaths, and cries from a hundred noisy coolies, come floating down in bursts of clamour on the soft morning air.  The din waxes and wanes as the excited beaters descry a ‘sounder’ of pig ahead; with a mighty roar that makes your blood tingle, the frantic coolies rally for the final burst.  Like rockets from a tube, the boar and his progeny come crashing through the brake, and separate before you on the plain.  With a wild cheer you dash after them in hot pursuit; no time now to think of pitfalls, banks, or ditches; your gallant steed strains his every muscle, every sense is on the alert, but you see not the bush and brake and tangled thicket that you leave behind you.  Your eye is on the dusky glistening hide and the stiff erect bristles in front; the shining tusks and foam-flecked chest are your goal, and the wild excitement culminates as you feel your keen steel go straight through muscle, bone, and sinew, and you know that another grisly monster has fallen.  As you ease your girths and wipe your heated brow, you feel that few pleasures of the chase come up to the noblest, most thrilling sport of all, that of pig-sticking.