s not, as I
expected, soon exhausted; and they settled round the tree about twenty
yards distant, and kept looking at me with their little twinkling eyes,
as much as to say, 'We'll have you yet.'" So far are Mr. Byam's own
words; and I now give the sequel in a more abridged form, though, by so
doing, I feel that I deprive the story of some of its zest:--Having made
up his mind to a regular siege, he examined his resources, and found
them to be a double-barreled gun, a flask of powder (nearly full),
plenty of copper caps; a few charges of shot; only two balls; a knife,
flint, and steel; a piece of hard, dried tongue; a small flask of
spirits and water; and a good bundle of cigars. He could not expect
relief, a sally was out of the question; so he made himself as
comfortable as he could. Hour after hour passed, the pigs never stirred,
except when one or two returned to look at their dead comrade, as if to
sharpen their revenge. At length the imprisoned hunter thought of firing
off some powder every few minutes, shouting at the same time. One barrel
of his gun was still loaded with shot, and he aimed at an old boar; who,
on returning from his deceased friend, had looked up at him and grunted.
The whole charge, at a distance of about twenty feet, went into the
boar's face, who then turned round and ran away, making a horrible
noise. The rest of the party charged altogether up to the foot of the
tree, but the outcry of the old boar drew them away; and the whole herd
went after him, making such a noise as never before had saluted Mr.
Byam's ears. He remained in the tree a short time; and, when all was
quiet, he slipped down, and ran away as fast as he could, in a contrary
direction.

Hogs are not equally prized by all nations. The detestation in which
they were held by the Egyptians, was continued by the Israelites; not
only from living with those people, but because they were unclean
animals. They are still viewed in that light by Brahmins and Mussulmans,
who only rear them to sell to Christians, or to make scavengers of them,
for, in a domestic state, they are omnivorous. The dislike of the latter
to them was once very serviceable to me; for when we were bivouacking
close to a Mahommedan village, the people, and the priests thronged
around us, so as to be extremely troublesome; and the only way in which
we could keep them at a distance, without force, was by tying pieces of
ham over the different entrances of the building i