Hunting in Many Lands Part 9

I have killed five cougars, and this is the only one that ever gave me a fight. I record it with much pleasure, for there is an uncertainty about the cougar's temperament and an alacrity of movement that are altogether unsettling. You never know in what mood you find the mountain lion, and he does not seem by any chance to be in the same one more than once, for those I have shot have evinced different dispositions; generally, however, bordering on the cowardly. At times their actions are sufficient to characterize them as the veriest cowards in the world, and yet again, on very slight provocation, they are most aggressive and cruelly ferocious. There are many well-authenticated stories, to be had for the asking of any old mountaineer, of the unwonted craftiness and ferocity of the cougar, and I suppose I could fill a couple of chapters of this volume by recounting yarns that have been told me during my Western life.

Between ourselves, I do not think hunting the cougar is very much sport.

It is an instructive experience, and one, I think, every hunter of big game should have; but, at the same time, in my opinion it does not afford the sport of still-hunting deer, antelope, elk, moose or bears.

In the first place, there is really no time you can still-hunt the cougar except in winter, when there is a light snow on the ground, and at all times it is most difficult, because you are dealing with an animal that embodies the very quintessence of wariness, and is ever on the lookout for prey and enemies. You have to deal with an animal that knows every crevice and hole of the mountain side, that moves by night in preference to day, and rarely travels in the open; whose great velvety paws enable it to sneak about absolutely unheard, and that will crouch in its lair while you pa.s.s, perhaps within a dozen feet.

Yet there are only two ways of really hunting the mountain lion--by still-hunting and by baiting. I have tried baiting a number of times, but have never found it successful. Others, I understand, have found it so; but in a score of cases, where I have provided tempting morsels, and lain out all night in hopes of getting a shot at the marauder, in none have I been rewarded, and in only one or two have I got a glimpse of a pair of shining eyes, that disappeared in the gloom almost on the instant of my discovering them.

Probably the most successful method of getting a shot at this wary beast is by hunting it with dogs (though I never had the experience), for the mountain lion has small lungs and makes a short, fast race. With dogs on his trail he is likely to take to a tree after a not very long run, which rarely occurs when he is still-hunted on foot. Yet, if the hunter values the lives of his dogs, he must be sure of his first shot, for the cougar is a tough customer to tackle when in his death throes; and I have been told, by those who have hunted in this way, that many a young and promising dog has had the life crushed out of him by the dying lion.

Their forelegs are short and very powerful; but, curiously enough, unlike the bear, they do not use them in cutting and slashing so much as in drawing the victim to them to crush out its life with their strong jaws.

I have said, one never knows how to take the cougar. Almost every mining camp in the West will produce somebody who has met and scared him to flight by a mere wave of the hand or a shout, and that identical camp will as like as not produce men that have had the most trying experiences with the same animal. It is this knowledge that makes you, to say the least, a little uncomfortable when you meet one of these creatures. I have had many trying experiences of one kind and another, and hunted many different kinds of game, but none ever hara.s.sed my soul as the cougar has. On one occasion I had been about five miles from camp, prospecting for gold, which I had discovered in such alluring quant.i.ties as to keep me panning until darkness put an end to my work and started me homeward. It was a pretty dark night, and my trail lay along the side of a mountain that was rather thickly wooded and a pretty fair sort of hunting country. I had left my cabin early in the morning, intent on finding one of the numerous fortunes that was confidently believed to be hidden away in those New Mexico gulches, and was armed only with pick, shovel and pan. I was sauntering along, beset by dreams of prospective prosperity, based on the excellent finds I had made, when suddenly in front of me--I am sure not more than twenty-five feet--two great b.a.l.l.s of fire rudely awakened me and brought my progress to an abrupt halt. I dare say it took a second or two to bring me down to earth, but when the earthward flight was accomplished I immediately concluded that those b.a.l.l.s of fire must belong to a mountain lion.

At that time my experience with the cougar had been sufficient to put me in an uncertain frame of mind as to just what to expect of the creature.

I had not an idea whether he was going to spring at me or whether I could scare him away. However, on chance, I broke the stillness of the night by one of those cowboy yells, in the calliope variations of which I was pretty well versed in those days, and, to my immense relief, the two glaring b.a.l.l.s of fire disappeared.

Trudging on my way, I had once more lost myself in the roseate future incidental to placers averaging three dollars in gold to the cubic yard, when, as suddenly as before, and as directly in front of me, those two glaring b.a.l.l.s shone out like a hideous nightmare. This time, I confess, I was a little bit annoyed. I knew that, as a rule, mountain lions do not follow you unless they are ravenous with hunger or smell blood. I had not been hunting, and, consequently, my clothes and hands were free from gore, and I was therefore forced to the sickening conclusion that this particular beast had selected me as a toothsome morsel for its evening repast. I cannot honestly say I was flattered by the implied compliment, and, summoning all my nerve, I reached for a rock and hurled it at those eyes, to hear it crash into the dry brush, and, greatly to my peace of mind, to see the diabolical lights go out, for it was too dark to distinguish the animal itself.

Congratulating myself on the disappearance of the hideous will-o'-the-wisp, I set out at a five-mile-an-hour gait for camp. My castles in the air had by this time quite dissolved, and I was attending strictly to the business of the trail, wishing camp was at hand instead of a mile off, when once more those greenish lanterns of despair loomed up ahead of me--not more than a dozen feet away, it seemed. I presume the beast had been trailing me all the time, though, after its second visitation, I kept a sharp lookout without discovering it, but evidently it had kept track of my movements.

I had no proof of its being the same animal, of course, but I was pretty well persuaded of its ident.i.ty, and I became thoroughly convinced that this particular cougar had grown weary of waiting for its supper, and was about to begin its meal without even the courtesy of "by your leave." The uncanny feature of the experience was that not a sound revealed its approach on any occasion, and I had no intimation of its call until it dropped directly in my path. I leaned against a friendly tree and thought pretty hard, watching the animal most intently to see that it did not advance. It stood there as still as death, so far as I could distinguish, not moving even its head, and the steady glare of its eyes turned full upon me.

I made up my mind that, if the animal was going to feast on me that evening, I would disarrange its digestion, if possible. My short-handled prospecting pick was the nearest approach I had to a weapon, and, summoning all my ancient baseball skill, and feeling very carefully all around me to see that there were no intervening branches to arrest its flight, I hurled that pick at those two shining eyes, with a fervid wish that it might land between them. My aim was true and it landed--just where I cannot say, but I do know that it struck home; for, with a screech calculated to freeze one's blood, and a subsequent growl, the lion made off. For the rest of the mile to camp I had eyes on all sides of the path at once, but I was not molested.

I have since often wondered whether hunger or pure malice possessed that brute. Owen Wister, to whom I told the story not very long ago, suggested curiosity, and I am half inclined to believe his interpretation; for, if hunger had been the incentive, it seems as if a tap on the nose with a prospecting pick would not have appeased it, though the cougar's propensity for following people, out of unadulterated wantonness to frighten them, is well known. At any rate, he showed his cowardly side that trip.

The cougar is a curious beast, capricious as a woman. One day he follows his prey stealthily until the proper opportunity for springing upon it comes; again he will race after a deer in the open; at one time he will flee at a shout, at another he will fight desperately. They are powerful animals, particularly in the fore quarters. I have seen one lope down a mountain side, through about six inches of snow, carrying a fawn by the nape of the neck in its jaws, and swinging the body clear.

In the West generally, I think, the lion is considered cowardly--a belief I share, though agreeing with Theodore Roosevelt, who in "The Wilderness Hunter" says cougars, and, in fact, all animals vary in moods just as much as mankind. Because of their feline strategy and craftiness, they are most difficult animals to hunt; I know none more so. Neither do I know of any beast so likely to still the tenderfoot's heart. Their cry is as terror-striking as it is varied. I have heard them wail so you would swear an infant had been left out in the cold by its mamma; I have heard them screech like a woman in distress; and, again, growl after the conventional manner attributed to the monarch of the forest. The average camp dog runs to cover when a cougar is awakening the echoes of the mountain. I should call it lucky, for those who hunt with dogs, that the lion does not pierce the atmosphere by his screeches when being hunted; for, if he did, I fear it would be a difficult matter to keep dogs on his trail. There seems to be something about his screeching that particularly terrorizes dogs.

_Casper W. Whitney._

[Ill.u.s.tration: YAKS GRAZING.]

Big Game of Mongolia and Tibet

From remote antiquity hunting has been a favorite pastime of the emperors of China, but at no time has it been conducted with such magnificence as under the Mongol dynasty in the thirteenth century and during the reigning Manchu one.

Marco Polo's account of a hunt of Kublai Khan reads like a fairy tale.

The Emperor left his capital every year in March for a hunting expedition in Mongolia, accompanied by all his barons, thousands of followers and innumerable beaters. "He took with him," says Polo, "fully 10,000 falconers and some 500 gerfalcons, besides peregrines, sakers and other hawks in great numbers, including goshawks, to fly at the waterfowl. He had also numbers of hunting leopards (_cheetah_) and lynxes, lions, leopards, wolves and eagles, trained to catch boars and wild cattle, bears, wild a.s.ses, stags, wolves, foxes, deer and wild goats, and other great and fierce beasts.

"The Emperor himself is carried upon four elephants in a fine chamber, made of timber, lined inside with plates of beaten gold and outside with lions' skins. And sometimes, as they may be going along, and the Emperor from his chamber is holding discourse with the barons, one of the latter shall exclaim: 'Sire, look out for cranes!' Then the Emperor instantly has the top of his chamber thrown open, and, having marked the cranes, he casts one of his gerfalcons, whichever he pleases; and often the quarry is struck within his view, so that he has the most exquisite sport and diversion there, as he sits in his chamber or lies on his bed; and all the barons with him get the enjoyment of it likewise. So it is not without reason I tell you that I do not believe there ever existed in the world, or ever will exist, a man with such sport and enjoyment as he has, or with such rare opportunities."

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, during the reign of the Emperor K'ang-hsi, Father Gerbillon followed the Emperor several times on his hunting expeditions into Mongolia, and has told us in his accounts of these journeys of the enthusiasm and skill displayed by the Emperor in the pursuit of game, which he usually shot with arrows, though he also had hawks and greyhounds with him.

I find no mention of the use of firearms in these imperial hunts, nor do I believe that it has ever been considered, by the Tartars and Mongols, sportsmanlike to use them.

Coursing and hawking were probably introduced into China and Mongolia after the Mongol conquest of Western Asia, where those royal sports had then been in vogue for a long time. At present the Manchus keep great numbers of hawks, caught for the most part in the northern portion of the province of Shan-hsi, and with them they take hares and cranes.

Greyhounds are no longer numerous in Mongolia and China, though they are much prized, and I have seen some among the Ordos Mongols and in Manchu garrisons. They were short-haired, of a clear tan color with black points, and showed good blood in their small tails and depth of chest.

Besides the great annual hunts on the steppes--which, leaving aside the sport and incidental invigorating influence on the courtiers, helped, by the vast numbers of troops which took part in them, to keep quiet the then turbulent Mongol tribes--the emperors of China have had, at different times, great hunting parks, inclosed by high walls, at convenient distances from their capital, or even in close proximity to it, where they could indulge their fondness for the chase. Several of these parks (called _wei chang_) are still preserved for imperial hunts, and one I visited in 1886, to the north of Jehol and about six days'

travel from Peking, is some ninety miles long from north to south, and over thirty miles from east to west. It is well stocked with pheasants, roebucks, stags, and, it is said, there are also tigers and leopards in it. The park is guarded by troops, and any person caught poaching in it, besides receiving corporal punishment, is exiled for a period of a year and a half to two years to a distant town of the empire. During my visit to this park, I and my three companions camped just outside one of the gates, and, by paying the keepers a small sum, we were able to get daily a few hours' shooting in a little valley inside the wall and near our camp. Though we had no dogs, and lost all the winged birds and wounded hares, we bagged in nine or ten days over 500 pheasants, 150 hares, 100 partridges and a few ducks.

A mile or so south of Peking is another famous hunting park, called the _Nan-hai-tzu_, in which is found that remarkable deer, not known to exist in a wild state in any other spot, called _Cervus davidi_. Of late years a number of these deer have been raised in the imperial park of Uwino at Tokio, and also in the Zoological Garden of Berlin, where a pair were sent by the German Minister to China, Mr. Von Brandt. This deer is known to the Chinese as the _ssu-pu-hsiang-tzu_, "the four dissimilarities," because, while its body shows points of resemblance to those of the deer, horse, cow and a.s.s, it belongs to neither of those four species--so say the Chinese.

The Chinese proper show but rarely any great love for sport. They are fond of fishing, and I have seen some very good shots among them, especially at snipe shooting, when, with their match-locks fired from the hip, they will frequently do snap shooting of which any of our crack shots might be proud. But the Chinese are essentially pot hunters, and have no sportsmanlike instincts as have the Manchus and Mongols, with whom sport is one of the pleasures of life, though it is also a source of profit to many Mongol tribes. In winter they supply with game--deer, boars, antelope, hares, pheasants and partridges--the Peking market, bringing them there frozen from remote corners of their country.

Among the big game in the northern part of the Chinese Empire the first place properly belongs to tigers and leopards. In Korea tigers are quite common, and a special corps of tiger hunters was kept up until recently by the Government. The usual method of killing tigers is to make a pitfall in a narrow path along which one has been found to travel, and on either side of it a strong fence is erected. When the tiger has fallen into the pit, he is shot to death or speared. The skin belongs to the king, and the hunters are rewarded by him for each beast killed. The skins are used to cover the seats of high dignitaries, to whom they are given by the king, as are also the skins of leopards; and tigers'

whiskers go to ornament the hats of certain petty officials.

Leopards are so numerous in Korea that I have known of two being killed within a few weeks inside of the walls of Seoul.

Tigers are also found in Manchuria, and, as before mentioned, in parts of northern and southeastern China. I have seen the skin of a small one hanging as an _ex voto_ offering in a lama temple near the Koko-Nor, and was told that it had been killed not far from that spot. Colonel Prjevalsky, however, says that the tiger is not found in northwestern China; so the question remains an open one.

Leopards, at all events, are common in northeastern and northwestern China, in the hunting parks north of Peking, in the mountains of northwest Kan-su and to the south of Koko-Nor. Bears are common from northern Korea to the Pamirs. The Chinese distinguish two varieties, which they call "dog bear" or "hog bear," and "man bear." The first is a brown bear, and the latter, which is found on the high barren plateaus to the north of Tibet, where it makes its food princ.i.p.ally of the little lagomys or marmots, which live there in great numbers, has for this reason been called by Colonel Prjevalsky _Ursus lagomyarius_. I killed one weighing over 600 pounds, whose claws were larger and thicker than those of any grizzly I have seen. Its color is a rusty black, with a patch of white on the breast.

Besides these two varieties of bears, there is another animal, which, though it is not properly a bear, resembles one so closely that it is cla.s.sed by the Chinese and Tibetans in that family. It is known to the Chinese as _hua hsiung_, or "mottled bear," and Milne Edwards, who studied and described it, has called it _Ailuropus melanoleucus_. This animal was, I believe, discovered by that enterprising missionary and naturalist, Father Armand David (who called it "white bear"), in the little eastern Tibetan princ.i.p.ality of Dringpa or Mupin, in western Ssu-ch'uan.[13] Five specimens have so far been secured of this very rare animal: three are in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, the other two in the Museum at the Jesuits' establishment, at Zikawei, near Shanghai.

[13] See _Nouvelles Archives du Museum de Paris_, X., pp. 18 and 20.

The stag or red deer ("horse deer" in Chinese) is found in Manchuria and northern Korea, and the Tibetan variety, called _shawo_, must be very abundant in portions of eastern Tibet, to judge from the innumerable loads of horns which I have pa.s.sed while traveling through eastern Tibet on the way to China, in which latter country they are used in the preparation of toilet powder. There is also a small deer in the mountains of Alashan, in western Kan-su and Ssu-ch'uan, and in the Ts'aidam; but I know nothing concerning it save its Mongol name, _bura_, and its Chinese, _yang lu_, or "sheep deer." Prjevalsky, however, gives some interesting details concerning it. Some Chinese mention a third variety, called _mei lu_, or "beautiful deer," said to live in the Koko-Nor country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AILUROPUS MELANOLEUCUS.]

The musk deer is found in most parts of the Himalayas and Tibet, and as far northeast as Lan-chou, on the Yellow River, in the Chinese province of Kan-su. It is hunted wherever found, and nearly all the musk ultimately finds its way to Europe or America, as it is not used to any great extent by either Tibetans, Chinese or any of the other peoples in whose countries it is procured; the Chinese only use a small quant.i.ty in the preparation of some of their medicines. They distinguish two varieties of musk deer: one, having tusks much larger than the other, is called "yellow musk deer."

Next in importance among the game of this region we find the _Antilope gutturosa_ and the _Ovis burhil_, or "mountain goat," which range from eastern Mongolia to western Tibet. But more important than these from a sportsman's point of view is the _argali_, of which Col. Prjevalsky distinguishes two varieties: the _Ovis argali_, ranging along the northern bend of the Yellow River, between Kuei-hua Ch'eng and Alashan; and the white-breasted _argali_, or _Ovis poli_, ranging from the Ts'aidam and western Ssu-ch'uan to the Pamirs.

The name _argali_ is, I think, an unfortunate one to give to this species, as it is a Mongol word solely used to designate the female animal, the male of which is called _kuldza_.

The _Antilope hodgsoni_, called _orongo_ in Mongol, has about the same range as the _Ovis poli_. It is by far the most beautiful antelope of this region--the long, graceful, lyre-shaped horns, which it carries very erect when running, being frequently over two feet in length.

Although, to my mind, what are commonly regarded as cattle should no more be considered game when wild than when tame, still, as I am perhaps alone of this opinion, I must note, among the game animals of this part of Asia, yaks and a.s.ses, which are found in western Mongolia, Turkestan and in many parts of Tibet, especially the wild northern country, or Chang-t'ang.

The wild yak is invariably black, with short, rather slender horns (smaller than our buffalo's), bending gracefully forward. The head is large, but well proportioned, and the eyes quite large, but with a very wild look in them. The legs are short and very heavy, the hoofs straight and invariably black. The hair, which hangs down over the body and legs, the face alone excepted, is wavy, and on the sides, belly and legs is so long that it reaches within a few inches of the ground. The tail is very bushy and reaches to the hocks, all the hair being of such uniform length that it looks as if it were trimmed. When running, the yak carries its tail high up or even over its back, and when frightened or angered holds it straight out behind.

The calves have a grunt resembling that of the hog, hence the name _Bos grunniens_, but in the grown animal it is rarely heard; it is at best only a dull, low sound, unworthy of such a big, savage-looking beast.

The bones of the yak are so heavy that it is nearly impossible to kill one except by shooting it through the heart or wounding it in some equally vital spot. Although I have shot a great many of these animals in northern Tibet, I have never bagged any except when shot as above mentioned, nor have I ever broken the limb of one. It is true that I have done all my shooting with a .44 caliber Winchester carbine, which was entirely too light for the purpose.

The yak is not a dangerous animal except in the case of a solitary bull, which will sometimes charge a few yards at a time, till he falls dead at the hunter's feet, riddled with bullets. When in large bands yaks run at the first shot, rushing down ravines, through snow banks and across rivers, without a moment's hesitation, in a wild stampede.

Mongol and Tibetan hunters say that one must never shoot at a solitary yak whose horns have a backward curve, as he will certainly prove dangerous when wounded; but the same beast may be shot at with impunity if in a band. In fact, the natives never shoot at yaks except when in a good-sized bunch. Natives usually hunt them by twos and threes, and, after stalking to within a hundred yards or even less, they all blaze away at the same time.

The number of yaks on the plateaus north of Tibet is very considerable, but there are no such herds as were seen of buffaloes on our plains until within a few years. I have never seen over 300 in a herd, but Col.

Prjevalsky says that when he first visited the country around the sources of the Yellow River, in 1870, he saw herds there of a thousand head and more. Yaks are enormous feeders, and, in a country as thinly covered with gra.s.s as that in which they roam, they must travel great distances to secure enough food. As it is, it is the rarest thing in the world to find even in July or August fine grazing in any part of this country; the yaks keep the gra.s.s as closely cut as would a machine.