You will have occasional glimpses of your game, who will be gazing intently at you at great distances long before you can see them, but you will never get a decent shot.The great excitement and pleasure of all sport consists in a thorough knowledge of the pursuit.When the dew is heavy upon the ground at break of day, you are strolling noiselessly along with the rifle, scanning the wide plains and searching the banks of the pools and streams for foot-marks of the spotted deer.Upon discovering the tracks their date is immediately known, the vicinity of the game is surmised, the tracks are followed up, and the herd is at length discovered.The wind is observed; dry leaves crumbled into powder and let fall from the hand detect the direction if the slightest air is stirring, and the approach is made accordingly.Every stone, every bush or tree or tuft of grass, is noted as a cover for an advance, and the body being kept in a direct line with each of these objects, you approach upon hands and knees from each successive place of shelter till a proper distance is gained.The stalking is the most exciting sport in the world.I have frequently heard my own heart beat while creeping up to a deer.He is an animal of wonderful acuteness, and possessing the keenest scent; he is always on the alert, watching for danger from his stealthy foe the leopard, who is a perfect deer-stalker.
To kill spotted deer well, if they are tolerably wild, a person must be a really good rifle shot, otherwise wise he will wound many, but seldom bag one.They are wonderfully fast, and their bounding pace makes them extremely difficult to hit while running.Even when standing they must be struck either through the head, neck, or shoulder, or they will rarely be killed on the spot; in any other part, if wounded, they will escape as though untouched, and die a miserable death in solitude.
In narrating long shots that I have made, I recount them as bright moments in the hours of sport; they are the exceptions and not the rule.
I consider a man a first-rate shot who can ALWAYS bag his deer standing at eighty yards, or running at fifty.HITTING and BAGGING are widely different.If a man can always bag at the distance that I have named he will constantly hit, and frequently bag, at extraordinary ranges, as there is no doubt of his shooting, and, when he misses, the ball has whizzed somewhere very close to the object; the chances are, therefore, in favour of the rifle.
The deer differ in character in various parts of Ceylon.In some places where they are rarely disturbed they can be approached to within thirty or forty paces, in which case a very moderate shot can easily kill them;but it is better sport when they are moderately wild.The greatest number of deer that I ever saw was in the south-eastern part of Ceylon, in the neighbourhood of Pontane and Yalle.The whole of this country is almost uninhabited, and accordingly undisturbed.Yalle is the nearest town of importance, from which a good road, lined on either side with cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, extends as far as Tangalle, fifty miles.A few miles beyond this village the wild country begins, and Hambantotte is the next station, nearly ninety miles from Yalle.The country around Hambantotte is absolutely frightful-wide extending plains of white sand and low scrubby bushes scattered here and there; salt lakes of great extent, and miserable plains of scanty herbage, surrounded by dense thorny jungles.Notwithstanding this, at some seasons the whole district is alive with game.January and February are the best months for elephants and buffaloes, and August and September are the best seasons for deer, at which time the whole country is burnt up with drought, and the game is forced to the vicinity of Yalle river and the neighbouring pools.In the wet season this district is nearly flooded, and forms a succession of deep marshes, the malaria from which is extremely unhealthy.At this time the grass is high, and the elephants are very numerous.
When I was in this part of the country the drought was excessive; the jungle was parched, and the leaves dropped from the bushes under the influence of a burning sun.Not a cloud ever appeared upon the sky, but a dazzling haze of intense heat spread over the scorched plains.The smaller streams were completely dried up, and the large rivers were reduced to rivulets in the midst of a bed of sand.
The whole of this country is a succession of flat sandy plains and low jungles contiguous to the sea-coast.The intense heat and the glare of the sun rendered the journey most fatiguing.I at length descried a long line of noble forest in the distance, and this I conjectured to be near the river, which turned out to be the case; we were soon relieved from the burning sun by the shade of as splendid a forest as I have ever seen.A few hundred yards from the spot at which we had entered, Yalle river rolled along in a clear stream.In the wet season this is a rapid torrent of about 150 yards in width, but at this time the bed of the river was dry, with the exception of a stream of about thirty paces broad, which ran directly beneath the bank we were descending.
