FROM one’s earliest days the wild-boar has been invested with a sort of halo of romance, identified in youthful mind with grim courage and brute strength. Perhaps his grisly front, the vicious bloodshot eyes, savage snorts, and generally malignant demeanour, lend substance to such idea. But even among adults there exists in the popular mind a strange mixture of misconception as between big game and dangerous game—to hundreds the terms are synonymous. Thus a lady, inspecting our trophies, exclaimed, “Oh, Mr.——, aren’t these beasts very treacherous?” which almost provoked the reply, “You see, we are even more treacherous!”

In sober truth, nevertheless, a big old boar when held up at bay, or charging in headlong rushes upon the dogs, his wicked eyes flashing fire, and foam flying from his jaws as tushes clash and champ, presents as pretty a picture of brute-fury and pluck as even a world-hunter may wish to enjoy.

Yet among hundreds of boars that we have killed or seen killed (though dogs are caught continually, and occasionally a horse), there has never occurred a serious accident to the hunter, and only a few narrow escapes.

As an example of the latter: the keeper, while “placing” the writer among bush-clad dunes outside the Mancha of Majada Real, mentioned that a very big boar often frequented some heavy rush-beds on my front. “Should the dogs give tongue to pig at that point, your Excellency will at once run in to the function.” Such were his instructions.

ROOM FOR TWO
ROOM FOR TWO

At the point indicated the dogs bayed unmistakably, and seizing a light single carbine, ·303 (as there was a stretch of heavy sand to cover) I ran in. Arriving at the covert and already close up to the music, suddenly the “bay” broke, and I felt the bitter annoyance of being twenty seconds too slow. I had entered by a narrow game-path, and was still hurrying up this when I met the flying boar face to face. By chance he had selected the same track for his retreat! As we both were moving, and certainly not six yards apart, there was barely time to pull off the carbine in the boar’s face and throw myself back against the wall of matted jungle on my left. Next moment the grizzly head and curving ivories flashed past within six inches of my nose! The spring he had given carried the boar a yard past me, and there he stopped, stern-on, champing and grunting, both tushes visible—I could see them in horrid projection, on either side of the snout! I had brought the empty carbine to the “carry,” so as to use it bayonet-wise, to ward the brute off my legs; but he remained stolidly where he had stopped, and, as may be imagined, I stood stolid too. As it proved, the bullet, entering top of shoulder, had traversed the vitals—hence the cessation of hostilities. A few moments later the arrival of the dogs terminated an untoward interval.

On another occasion at the Veta de las Conchas, amidst the lovely pinales, just as the beat was concluded, there dashed from a small thicket a troop of a dozen pig, making direct for the solitary pine behind which the writer held guard. Passing full broadside, at thirty yards the biggest dropped dead on the sand, and, just as the troop disappeared in a donga, a second, it seemed, was knocked over. On the beaters approaching I walked across to see, and there, in the hollow, lay the second pig apparently dead enough. Having picked up my field-glasses, cartridge-pouch, etc., I stood close by awaiting the keeper’s arrival. Three or four dogs, however, following on the spoor, arrived first; and on their worrying the deceased, it at once sprang to its feet, gazed for one instant, and charged direct. Never have I seen an animal cover twenty yards more quickly! Dropping the handful of chismes aforesaid, I pulled off an unaimed cartridge in my assailant’s face and a lucky bullet struck rather below the eyes. This is not a dead shot, but the shock at that short distance proved sufficient.

An amusing incident, not dissimilar, occurred at Salavar. A youthful sportsman was approaching a boar which had fallen and lay apparently dead, when it, too, suddenly sprang up and charged. Our friend turned and fled; but, tripping over a fallen branch, fell headlong amidst the green rushes. There, face-downwards, he lay, preferring, as he explained later, “to receive his wound behind rather than have his face messed about by a boar!” Luckily the animal, on losing sight of its flying foe, pulled up and stood, grunting surprise and disapproval.

A similar experience befell King Alfonso XIII. in this Mancha of Salavar, December 29, 1909. We need not tell English readers that His Majesty proved equal to this, as to every occasion, and dropped his adversary at arm’s length.

When one reads (as we do) descriptions of big-game hunting, a recurring expression gives pause—that of “charging.” A recent discussion in a sporting paper turned on the question of “the best weapon for a charging boar.” Now such a thing as a “charging boar” has never, in a long experience, occurred to the authors—that is, a boar charging deliberately, and of its own initiative, upon human beings; and we do not believe in the possibility of such an event. Of course should a boar (or any other savage animal) be disabled, or in a corner, that is a different matter—then a wild-boar will fight, and right gallantly too.

The nearest approach to a “charge” (though it wasn’t one really) occurred at the Rincon de los Carrizos. Towards the end of the beat the dogs ran a pig, and, seeing it was a big one, the writer followed, and after a spin of 300 yards overtook the boar at bay in a deep water-hole. The place was all overhung with heavy foliage and thick pines above, giving very poor light. Though the boar’s snout pointed straight towards me about ten yards away, I imagined (wrongly) that his body stood at an angle—about one-third broadside: hence the bullet (aimed past the ear), splashed harmlessly in the water, and next moment the pig was coming straight as a die, apparently meaning mischief. When within five yards, however, he jinked sharply to right, passing full broadside, when I killed him Á-boca-jarro, as the phrase runs, “at the mouth of the spout.”

BOLTED PAST
BOLTED PAST

In days of rapid change, when, in our own generation, sporting weapons have been at least thrice utterly metamorphosed, it is unwise to be dogmatic. Yet we may summarise our personal experience that the most efficient weapon for all such purposes as here described is that known as the “Paradox,” or at least of the Paradox type. The old “Express rifle” (the best in its day, less than a score of years ago, but now mere “scrap”) was also useful. But it always fell second to the Paradox, as the latter (being really a shot-gun, equally available for small game, snipe, duck, or geese) came up quicker to the eye for snap-shooting with ball.

The invention of the Paradox type of gun has practically introduced a third style of shooting where there previously existed only two, to wit:—

(1) Gun-shooting with shot where any “aim” or even an apology for an aim is fatal to modern maximum success.

(2) Rifle-shooting proper, which must be mechanical and deliberate—the more so, the more effective.

(3) Thirdly, we have this new system intermediate between the two—“gun-shooting with ball.”

Using the Paradox as a rifle, an alignment must be taken; but it may be taken as with a gun, and not necessarily the deliberate and mechanical alignment essential with a rifle, properly so called.

In short, with a Paradox, always glance along the sights. You will nearly always find that some “refinement” of aim is required. More words are useless.

One word as to the “forward allowance” needed after the rough alignment (as explained) has been effected. At short snapshot ranges none is required. At a galloping stag at 50 yards, the sights should clear his chest; at 100 yards, half-a-length ahead, and double that for 150 yards. At these longer ranges one instinctively allows for “drop” by taking a fuller sight. For standing shots, of course, the back-sights can be used.

Boar-Hunting by Moonlight (Estremadura)
“Caceria Á la Ronda.”

This picturesque and altogether break-neck style of hunting the boar—a style perhaps more consonant than “driving” with popular notions of the dash and chivalry of Spanish character—still survives in the wild province of Estremadura. No species of sport in our experience will compare with the Ronda for danger and sheer recklessness unless it be that of “riding lions” to a stand, as practised on British East African plains.[16]

Years ago we described this system of the Ronda in the “Big-Game” volumes of the Badminton Library, and here write a new account, correcting some slight errors which had crept into the earlier article.

This sport is practised by moonlight at that period of the autumn called the Montanera, when acorns and chestnuts fall from the trees, and when droves of domestic swine are turned loose into the woods to feed on these wild fruits. At that date the wild-boars also are in the habit of descending from the adjacent sierras, and wander far and wide over the wooded plains in search of that favourite food.

When the acorns fall thus and ripe chestnuts strew the ground in these magnificent Estremenian forests, the young bloods of the district assemble to await the arrival of the boars upon the lower ground. Two kinds of dog are employed: the ordinary podencos, which run free; and the alanos, a breed of rough-haired “seizers,” crossed between bull-dog and mastiff—these latter being held in leash.

Sallying forth at midnight, so soon as the podencos give tongue, the alanos are slipped in order to “hold-up” the flying boar till the horsemen can reach the spot.

Then for a while hound-music frightens the darkness and shocks the silence of the sleeping woods; there is crashing among dry forest-scrub, a breakneck scurry of mounted men among the timber, until the furious baying of the hounds and the noisy rush of the hunters converge towards one dark point among the shadows, and in the half-light a great grisly tusker dies beneath the cold steel, but not before he has written a lasting record on the hide of some luckless hound.

A stiff neck and bold heart are essential to these dare-devil gallops, where each horse and horseman vie in reckless rivalry, flying through bush and brake, and under overhung boughs difficult to distinguish amid moon-rays intercepted by foliage above. Accidents of course occur—an odd collar-bone or two hardly count, but what does annoy is when by mistake some wretched beast of domestic race is found held up by the excited pack.