Algeria from withinBodley, R. V. C. (Ronald Victor Courtenay)
History
Algeria from within
Bodley, R. V. C. (Ronald Victor Courtenay)
Algeria -- Description and travel
It is an exhilarating sport but it needs a little practise to hit
anything when both hunters and hunted are at full gallop. It is
moreover recommended to use a high-backed Arab saddle and also to
ride at the rear of the line, as excitement often makes the Arabs
shoot carelessly.
There are others, merely hunting for food, who go out before dawn
when the herds are all lying down, approach as near as possible, and
then blaze away as soon as it is light enough to see. Some sportsmen
hunt them with the native greyhound, but, as this entails much
leisure with often no results, the sport is dying out. I have
seen gazelles hunted from a motor-car. The vehicle goes bumping
across the desert until a herd is seen, and approaches as near
as possible. As soon as the animals get the wind they are off,
and the car is off after them. As in the case of the hunting on
horseback, the gazelles at first go much faster, but they are soon
overtaken and the car rushes along beside them while the occupants
discharge their guns into the terrified herd. It is a massacre,
but the shooting is not so easy as it sounds and the driver of
the car must have courage and judgment. Sometimes it is impossible
to get level with the gazelles. In these cases the object may be
achieved by the mere tooting of the horn! Nine times out of ten
this will cause the gazelles to stop, the car then stops too, and
the tooting continues at intervals until—marvelous to relate—
the animals begin approaching to see what the noise is. At this
moment the heathen kills just as many head as he wants.
There are few dishes more delicate than a roast haunch of gazelle,
and the cutlets melt in one’s mouth.
The moufflon—which is not really a moufflon at all, but a sort of
goat resembling very closely the animal which is known as the sharpu
in Kashmir—is very little hunted. In the first place, he lives in
very inaccessible mountains, chiefly in the Aures above Biskra and
in the Djebel Amour near Laghouat; secondly, he is getting scarce,
and thirdly, his meat not being very tender, is not sought after. If
the Arabs see one they shoot it with a shotgun regardless of sex
or age; and the European who wants to stalk must understand the
game thoroughly himself, be a good mountaineer, and merely employ
natives to guide him to the likely spots. It is one of the most
astonishing things to see how completely ignorant the Arabs are of
all questions of wind or light; their only idea seems to be to rush
up to the beasts as quickly as possible and kill in quantity.
But, if the sportsman will take trouble and get into touch with
some of the rare Arabs who enjoy this kind of shooting, he will
have some excellent sport and get quite good heads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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