stumbled in a rat hole
(it was very rotten ground), and came floundering to earth, bringing
his rider with him. Nothing daunted, Mac picked himself up, lost the
horse, but so eager and excited was he, that he continued the chase on
foot, calling to some of us to catch his horse while he stuck his boar.
The old boar was quite blown, and took in the altered aspect of affairs
at a glance; he turned to charge, and we loudly called on Mac to 'clear
out.' Not a bit of it, he was too excited to realise his danger, but
Pat fortunately interposed his horse and spear in time, and no doubt
saved poor Mac from a gruesome mauling. It was very plucky, but it was
very foolish, for heavily weighted with boots, breeches, spurs, and
spear, a man could have no chance against the savage onset of an
infuriated boar.

In the long thick grass with which the plain was covered the riding was
very dangerous. I remember seeing six riders come signally to grief
over a blind ditch in this jungle. It adds not a little to the
excitement, and really serious accidents are not so common as might be
imagined. It is no joke however when a riderless horse comes ranging up
alongside of you as you are sailing along, intent on war; biting and
kicking at your own horse, he spoils your sport, throws you out of the
chase, and you are lucky if you do not receive some ugly cut or bruise
from his too active heels. There is the great beauty of a well trained
Arab or country-bred; if you get a spill, he waits beside you till you
recover your faculties, and get your bellows again in working order; if
you are riding a Cabool, or even a waler, it is even betting that he
turns to bite or kick you as you lie, or he rattles off in pursuit of
your more firmly seated friends, spoiling their sport, and causing the
most fearful explosions of vituperative wrath.

There is something to me intensely exciting in all the varied incidents
of a rattling burst across country after a fighting old grey boar. You
see the long waving line of staves, and spear heads, and quaint shaped
axes, glittering and fluctuating above the feathery tops of the swaying
grass. There is an irregular line of stately elephants, each with its
towering howdah and dusky mahout, moving slowly along through the
rustling reeds. You hear the sharp report of fireworks, the rattling
thunder of the big _doobla_ or drum, and the ear-splitting clatter of
innumerable _tom-toms_. Shouts, oaths, and cries from a hundred