Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore: With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planterElliot, Robert H. (Robert Henry)
History
Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore: With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planter
Elliot, Robert H. (Robert Henry)
Caste -- India; Coffee; Karnataka (India) -- Description and travel; Karnataka (India) -- Politics and government
seldom rightly estimate the amount of nerve which we often expect natives
to show. I think I was never more startled in my life than I was one day
when I put my ramrod (it was of course in the muzzle loading days) into
the very narrow mouth of a cave in which I thought there was little chance
of Bruin being at home. A she-bear however was within, and all the fiercer
as she had cubs, but luckily she did not charge out, and I need hardly say
that I promptly drew back. Sometimes a cave may be so deep and tortuous
that the bear cannot be got out with the aid of a pole, and to meet such
cases I had stink balls made, as bears have very fine olfactory nerves and
seem particularly to object to disagreeable smells. These balls were
composed of asafoetida, pig dung, and any other offensive ingredient
that suggested itself to me at the time, and made up into about the size
of a cricket ball and then dried in the sun. The ball was, when required
to drive a bear out of a cave, impaled on the end of a long pole and
surrounded by dried grass, or any other inflammable material which was at
hand, and this being ignited the pole was thrust as far as possible into
the cave. This I found to be a highly successful plan, and I may mention
in passing that I have met with no account in the many sporting books I
have read of this being done previously. Sometimes large fires are lit in
the mouth of a cave with the view of smoking a bear out, but this is
rather a cruel process which I do not recommend. In some cases of
peculiarly shaped and situated caves it is, however, the only practicable
plan, but where adopted the bear should not be put to more inconvenience
than is necessary to drive him out. A large fire should be lit at the
entrance, and when the cave has got filled with smoke all the blazing
fragments of wood should be removed from the entrance, and in doing this
the people should talk loudly and make as much noise as possible, and
afterwards retreat to a distance from the cave leaving the sportsman with
his spare gun-carrier to sit just above the entrance to the cave. The bear
finding that, as he erroneously supposes, every one has gone away, and
being naturally desirous of quitting such uncomfortable quarters will,
after a short time, come cautiously out and may thus be easily shot. It is
very important to have a couple of bull-terriers when out bear shooting as
they are most useful in bringing a wounded bear to bay.
In considering these remarks upon the various ways of getting bears out of
caves it may be useful to show how not to attempt to get a bear out of a
cave, and the connecting circumstances will also be useful to anyone who
may be overtaken by a hill fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account