Sport in Jheel and Jungle

By K. N. Chaudhuri

THESE letters were written, in a simple form, as a record of my shikar experiences. I have always loved shikar ever since my early childhood and all through a strenuous life. I have tried never to miss a holiday, and even when hardest at work I have managed to go out for a few hours. It has always been a source of pleasure and education for me. It has developed powers of observation which I have found useful in my life. I wrote these letters for members of my family and my friends, to arouse in them some love for sport, and also as a record of my feelings. The jheel and jungle, bird and beast, have always had a strange fascination for me, and although I have not been able to reproduce all that I have gone through and felt, I venture to hope that these pages may afford some pleasure to those who are attracted by sport. They may also find points which may help them when out for game, as my experience has been very varied, extending over years, mainly in different parts of Bengal and Central India. I claim some degree of expert knowledge and success as a shikari, and shall be proud of my record if my little book finds a welcome place on the table of shikari friends, and helps my children to remember their old father and make them lovingly to preserve his trophies. (K.N.C.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syed Fasih
• Release date: Mar 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224461028

Book preview

SPORT

IN

JHEEL AND JUNGLE

K. N. CHAUDHURI

ADEEB ONLINE

Copyright © 2024 ADEEB ONLINE

Copyright © 2024 Adeeb Online. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. The publisher expressly prohibits the creation of any videos based on the content of this publication, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

PREFACE

THESE letters were written, in a simple form, as a record of my shikar experiences. I have always loved shikar ever since my early childhood and all through a strenuous life. I have tried never to miss a holiday, and even when hardest at work I have managed to go out for a few hours. It has always been a source of pleasure and education for me. It has developed powers of observation which I have found useful in my life. I wrote these letters for members of my family and my friends, to arouse in them some love for sport, and also as a record of my feelings. The jheel and jungle, bird and beast, have always had a strange fascination for me, and although I have not been able to reproduce all that I have gone through and felt, I venture to hope that these pages may afford some pleasure to those who are attracted by sport. They may also find points which may help them when out for game, as my experience has been very varied, extending over years, mainly in different parts of Bengal and Central India. I claim some degree of expert knowledge and success as a shikari, and shall be proud of my record if my little book finds a welcome place on the table of shikari friends, and helps my children to remember their old father and make them lovingly to preserve his trophies.

K. N. C.

CALCUTTA,

9th August, 1917.

MY DEAR KALYAN,

Sometimes in the rainy season, but more especially early in August, there come days so wet and overcast that life is dreary even to the robust. Such a day is to-day. Everything is damp and clammy, soaked through with moisture, and the heavy-laden clouds show no promise of a break. Old, happy, unforgotten, far-off things crowd into my mind, and once too often you have reminded me of an ancient promise to take you out and initiate you into the fascinating mysteries of big-game shooting. While yet in my early teens I got my first leopard, and a monster too. A flying mass of rufous fur, much too close to be safe–a lucky shot–a chase in supreme ignorance of all necessary rules for following up dangerous, wounded game, and with little knowledge of the habits of the denizens of the jungle–and then the final triumph!–this far-off but never to be forgotten incident flashes upon my memory this wet, clammy, depressing day, with all the thrill of that mad moment.

And many other incidents and perilous adventures. Left to my own resources, I began and have done most of my big-game shooting on foot. It is certainly the most dangerous, and at the same time I maintain that it is the safest, way of proceeding, wherever it is possible to do so. It is dangerous if you have learnt nothing of the habits of animals, their movements, peculiarities and fancies; if you have not taken the trouble to understand and acquire the art of tracking, not as it is understood by some of our wonderful trackers, but much more than the mere rudiments of this most useful acquirement. It is the safest method if you are well furnished in this line; and, with a guiding hand, you will be able to pursue your hobby by the adoption of what I consider absolutely necessary safeguards. A keen power of observation may be a natural gift–but who will deny that a little training will not help its acquisition? There is observable a sad and almost criminal neglect in the education doled out to our boys in the utter absence of methods which would help to develop this, as well as many other of their natural but incipient faculties. It is with this idea that I have instilled into you the curiosity to know something of every bird that you see, and of every animal that you come across. You and little Alaka (in spite of your opinion that girls have nothing on earth to do with all this) have often sat perched on an elephant watching snipe-shooting, or, with irrepressible infant ardour, shouted at every snipe flushed amongst lotus and weed as the dinghi was being punted through. You know that there are only a few more days for them to come and spread over lower Bengal. And the peculiar situation of their ears, behind their long bills (not their eyes), and the reason why, once pointed out, you wanted to verify by the examination of every snipe picked up. You have yet to see the same peculiarity in the only other bird that I am aware of–the woodcock. The present moon-lit nights will help an earlier advent than if they were dark. It is easy for you to distinguish the pintailed from the fantailed species–the painted is negligible though unmistakable. And the wee Jack–do you remember how, if one was bagged, another had to be, so that you should have one each? They are but few, and with a growing family it has been a trying task to procure the requisite number. And the difficulty created by deficiency has had to be solved by starting from the last, His Little Un-exalted Highness, the Tyrant of the family!

But I must not talk of snipe and snipe-shooting any more now. From our ancient country-house you have of an evening heard the rasping roar of the panther on the prowl, and that every evening till the day he fell to my rifle, within ear-shot.

You have seen me camouflage myself, i.e., arrange a slight screen with a leafy branch–slight yet sufficient for purposes of concealment-in front of my stool, watching a most likely track, and how before you had gone far out into the open on Mohon Lal, you returned on hearing a shot, to find a fine young male leopard hors de combat, with a bullet below his throat, as he came straight out towards my position. The country all round abounds in wild pig–the Pabna boar being well known for its enormous size, and they naturally attract the wily panther, which relentlessly levies toll upon the small ones and prospers. The lanes or tracks which wild animals use in going in or out of a jungle are not difficult to make out, nor is it difficult to ascertain in which direction and where they will naturally go for shelter and safety when disturbed or driven from their lairs. Much that I may tell you will be only to help you towards the acquisition of further knowledge, for which you will have to rely on practical experience, so as to enable you to shoot dangerous game on foot, with safety to yourself. What are described as accidents are not accidents at all, in the literal sense of that word, but the result either of ignorance, or inexperience, or fool-hardiness. There is always some risk–otherwise the game would not be worth the candle.

"No game was ever yet worth a rap

For a rational man to play,

Into which no accident, no mishap,

Could possibly find its way."

You will be able to learn enough from my letters to fit you up for the day when, rifle in hand, you first take the field. You should be, and it will be no fault of mine if you fail to become, a thorough sportsman. The mere shooting of game does not make of one a sportsman. We all know what a gentleman is–though it is hard to define one. To my mind a gentleman is one who is a thorough sportsman in all departments of life. The ways of life are beset with difficulties, and especially so the ways of an Indian’s life. And in shikar you will probably find envy, unhealthy rivalry, and conduct hardly consistent with ordinary notions of sport or fair-play-in short, conduct unbecoming a sportsman. You know the Mahabharata better than boys of your age, or of any age, and I hardly feel anxious as to how you should acquit yourself in life. There is an English phrase, and I should like to impress upon you the full meaning of it,–It must be cricket–you must play the game.

It has been amply proved in the present War that the best sportsman makes the best soldier, and the spirit which has inspired much of the bravery displayed in action has been doubtless bred and fostered by sport–the mimic war of the play-ground. The rough and tumble of football, at which I have seen you excel, the alertness in cricket–there is nothing like sport for training the vision and for giving poise, nerve, elasticity and endurance to the frame–all these beyond being good in themselves, go to build up character. Somehow and somewhere the qualities which make the man come into existence. It is this sporting instinct so deep and active in every British school-boy which has borne him up in the storm and stress of battle, in days of yore as well as to-day. And I cannot impress upon you too much that not only is it this instinct and the physical fitness which have stood out prominently amongst the countless ‘varsity-men and school-boys who have been fighting at the front–but the cleanness of the fight in this largergame of life and death. This is why I mean you and that little brother of yours to realize in your lives the noble duty of serving your King and the Empire, even as these youths of England have been doing. With me it has been a mere dream–and as time has passed, it has become more and more a memory, and less and less a hope. That hope, however, has emerged again with the possibility of its being realized in your lives. There can be no patriotism unless you feel, truly and directly, that the safety of your country or of the Empire depends upon your clean heart and your right arm, and unless you stand side by side on terms of absolute equality with other fellow-subjects–as comrades in the true sense, however different you may be in creed, or race, or color, from one another. And it is because of my hope and belief that you will be all this, and more, that I want you to be a sportsman in the true sense of that word.

"Hunt, fish, shoot;

Would a man fulfil life’s duty,

Not to bodily frame alone

Does sport give strength and beauty,

But character gains in-courage?

Ay, Sir, and much beside it!

Good sportsman means good fellow,

Sound-hearted he to the centre:

Your mealy-mouthed, milk milk-soaps-

There’s where the rot can enter.

Still, tastes are tastes, allow me!

Allow too, where there’s keenness

For sport, there’s little likelihood

Of a man’s displaying meanness."

Before closing this letter, I should tell you that no more fascinating study can be found than the book of Nature, which always lies open before you. The naturalist in his closet is more wrapped up in his pet theories, and is always inclined to put the glass to the wrong eye if facts which militate against them come within his vision. The observer in the field is a worthier man. You must learn to see accurately, and to remember what you have seen. The habits, not merely of game-animals, but innumerable others, are of fascinating interest. This is true of bird-life also. This interest will enable you to while away the days when there is no khubber, days which otherwise will but drag on with annoying slowness and ennui.

Game has been steadily receding by reason of the extension of cultivation, and opportunities such as we have had, and yet possess, may not be yours. There is another reason for this recession–the scarcity of water in river and jheel–due to the effects of deforestation and other causes. I am unable to speak authoritatively, but the scarcity is too palpable to be overlooked. Tracts where wild buffalo and deer used to abound have for this reason been abandoned, and the tiger and the leopard have followed in the wake. So you have to go far afield, and probably fare worse. Infinite may be the patience necessary for the attainment of success. Be a bit of a naturalist–and hill and forest and jheel and marsh will afford you topics of perennial attraction. For instance, to mention only one such, the colouration of bird and beast is a subject fraught with difficulty and is deserving of careful study. Sunlight glinting through foliage and bushes, where these are thick, falls in small circles, and in long lines where they are thin and sparse. This is said to be responsible for the spotted coat of the panther, and the striped one of the tiger; but it really accounts for these carnivorous animals being able to approach their prey unperceived in such localities. And the colour of herbivorous animals in many instances so harmonizes with their surroundings that it serves as a protective. Is this, however, true in the general or universal sense? In the same locality and in the midst of mutual enemies you will find gorgeously and conspicuously coloured birds and animals, as also those whose colouration harmonizes strongly with the surroundings. Colours in the same bird or animal undergo very material changes in different seasons. The absence of enemies may account for the conspicuous presence of certain animals and birds in particular localities. Colour may again change under the influence of environment, or by the action of sexual selection. I can only help you across the threshold–further and careful investigation into all these mysteries of Nature must be your own pursuit.

12th August, 1917.

MY DEAR ALAKA,

A peep into the first letter, and you discovered that it was addressed to your brother. This was accompanied by a little pout, and it meant that these epistles might as well be addressed to you both–to Kalyan, to teach him something of woodcraft; to you, to keep alive the cheerful interest with which you have always listened to my shikar adventures. A few more years and you will have to live the modest but charming domestic life of a Hindu girl; and the desire for a happy home of your own is not only innate, but is a desire inculcated by all that is best in our ancient literature, and this is the healthy and peaceful atmosphere in which you are placed. It is not possible to be entirely unaffected by the influences of the West, but some of your sisters of the western world, their number is unfortunately legion, fritter away their lives on futilities. Many of them have to be told that wifehood and motherhood are the only full and complete