PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 108, January 12, 1895.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand

TALL TALES OF SPORT AND ADVENTURE.

(By Mr. Punch's own Short Story-teller.)

Introduction.

Not many living men, and even fewer in the ages that are past, have—if I may use the word—sported with greater assiduity and success than I have during a life which is even now little past its middle period. At one time on horseback, at another on the bounding and impulsive elephant; now bestriding the matchless dromedary on his native prairie, now posted on foot in a jungle crowded with golden pheasants in all the native splendour of their plumage; sometimes matching my solitary craft against a host of foxes on the swelling uplands of Leicestershire, sometimes facing the Calydonian boar or the sanguinary panther in their woodland lairs, dealing showers of leaden death from a hundred tubes, or tracking my fearful prey by the lonely light of a wax vesta and despatching it at midnight with my trusty bowie—wherever there were leagues to be walked, risks to be run, or fastnesses to be rushed there not only have I been the first, but (paradoxical as it may appear) there also have I succeeded and have never been successfully followed. My experiences are therefore unique, and it is in the hope that they may to some extent profit a younger generation, less inured, I fear, to hardship and danger than my own, that I now set pen to paper and recount some of the exploits that have made my name famous wherever sport is loved and true sportsmen are revered.

A less modest man might have said more, but one whose deeds speak for him in every quarter of the world may well be content to leave to punier men the ridiculous trumpeting braggadocio that too often makes so-called sportsmen the laughing stock of society. For myself, I can never forget the lesson I learned at an early age from my dear father, himself a shikari of no common order, though to be sure, as he himself would be the first to admit if he were alive, the exploits of the son (I had no brothers) have now thrust the parental performances into the background. Still, it was my father who first inculcated upon my infant mind the daring, the ignorance of fear, the contempt of danger, and the iron endurance which have since made me a household word. Heaven rest the old man! He sleeps his last sleep far away in the Desert of Golden Sand, with no head-stone to mark his resting-place, and neither the roaring of his old enemies the tigers, nor the bellowing of the countless alligators who infest the spot can rouse him any more. Alas! it was trustfulness that destroyed him. He was gored to death by a favourite rhinoceros that he had rescued at a tender age when its mother was killed, and had brought up to know and, as he thought, to love him. But I have always thought myself that the rhinoceros was a treacherous brute, and though I have often been asked to tame one, for presentation to this or that Emperor, I have consistently declined.

Marvellous, however, as my father was in his day for his exploits and his variegated bags of game, he was perhaps even more wonderful for the unswerving accuracy with which he was accustomed to relate his adventures. Far and wide over the steppes of Central Asia, the burning regions of equatorial Africa, the precipitous haunts of the American Grizzly, and the wild retreats of the ferocious Albanian pig—everywhere, in short, where he had set foot or drawn trigger, this peculiarity of his was known and appreciated, and many a respectful sobriquet did it earn for him from the savage tribes amongst whom he spent the best years of his life. In Kashmir he was known as Peili Ton, that is, the man who cannot lie; amongst the swarthy Zambesians the name of Govun Bettîr (the Undefeated and Veracious Man) was a name to conjure with even when in their moments of warlike passion the tribesmen rushed madly through their primeval thickets, shouting their terrible war-cry, "Itzup ures Leeve," that is, "Death to the white-faced robbers."

"He had indeed seen ten bocks."

But what I wished specially to relate about my poor father was the lesson of truthfulness which he inculcated upon me at an early age. He and I (I was then but a lad of twelve) had been hunting the ferocious Pilsener gemsbock through the wild Lagerland in which he makes his home. It happened one morning that we had parted company. To me was assigned the duty of beating through the Bier-Wald, the dense forest which stretches mile upon mile in unbroken gloom to the confines of the Boose-See. The Fates were propitious. Wherever I turned I saw a victim, and one after another I brought down with unerring aim twenty-four (as I thought) of these noble animals, whose horns are now worth a king's ransom, and might, even in those distant days, have rescued a minor German Prince from captivity. Hastening home with my booty loaded upon my back—I was a strong boy for my age, but of course nothing to what I have since become—I met my dear father just as I reached the door of the hut which served us for hunting quarters. Joyously I cast down my burden, and sprang to his side. But my father wore an expression of annoyance, and I soon discovered that the luck had been against him. He had indeed seen ten bocks, but for some reason his aim had lacked its accustomed deadliness, and he had come back empty-handed. I condoled with him in a boy's artless fashion, and proceeded to tell him how fortunate I had been.

"How many have you shot?" he asked me.

"Twenty-four," was my reply.

"Count them," said my father.

I did so, and you may judge of my astonishment when I found that twenty-six had fallen to my gun. I counted again and again. Yes, there were twenty-six of them. With one of my shots I must have brought down three. In the agitation of the moment I had overlooked this. I told my father that I had made a slight mistake, and endeavoured to explain how it had arisen. But my father was inexorable.

"A lie," he said, "is a lie. You said you had shot twenty-four, you have actually killed twenty-six. You must suffer."

Over the rest of the painful scene I draw a veil. The shrieks of my mother, who implored pardon for me on her bended knees, still seem to ring in my ears. Since that time I have always respected not only the strict truth, but also the leather thongs which are in use in the Lagerland for the droves of untameable cattle that roam the prairies. This was my lesson, and I have never, never forgotten it.

TO AN OLD FLAME.—(Twenty Years after.)

Something to Live for.—The Pall Mall Gazette announced last Friday that "a bevy of head-masters will appear in the pulpit of St. Paul's this month." How many go to a "bevy" we are not aware, though perhaps we might ascertain it from Sir