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| Location: |
Asia - South Asia - Bangladesh |
| Subject: |
Distribution |
| Species: |
Javan Rhino |
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1850
Asmodeus, 1850. Eastward Ho! India Sporting Review 12: 68-80
[71] Upper Sunderbunds between Calcutta and Culneah. - Rhinoceros are by no means scarce, and as, in one way and other, the fortunate killer of one of these brutes realises from twenty-five to thirty -five rupees by his deed of “ derring-do,” the native shikarries display more than usual courage and recklessness in the chase. A remarkably fine young man, as described to me, had recently been killed by one that he had fired at and wounded ; the rhinoceros charged and the shikarries took to the nearest trees; but the unlucky marksman was too late, or his arbor of refuge was too low for safety, for with one rip which laid the thigh bare to the bone from the knee to the groin, the rhinoceros brought him to the ground and then grouted (if I may be allowed the expression, and I know no other that so well conveys my meaning) his chest open, killing him on the spot and leaving him a fearful spectacle for men and gods. Each rhinoceros hide yields three valuable shields, and this, added to the presents bestowed by the grantees as well as the wealthy natives, by whom the flesh is much esteemed as an article of luxury and who pay well for the same, makes the value of the quarry, when obtained, amount to what I have put it down at.
[71] Sunderbunds. - Tigers and leopards too are by no means seance about the villages on the main land, and one of the latter, by no means a bad specimen of the spotted pard, was shot by the gentleman in question a few weeks back. He may possibly communicate details himself, as well as of the death of a stray rhinoceros which he recently shot on foot. The latter must have wandered up from the Sunderbuns and was brought to his notice, when he was out in the district, by the Armenian Superintendant of a Zemindary. In the course of the skrimmage that ensued, the latter gent was charged
by the rhinoceros (wounded), knocked down and nosed by him, but whether it was that the unwieldy brute approved not the smell or was too busy with his own affairs to bestow more than a slight rub of recognition en passant the legend sayeth not ; certain it is that he left him a good deal more frightened than hurt, and receivirvg a couple more bullets from Mr. R., laid himself down to die in an adjacent patch of jungles, while the Superintendant lives to rejoice over his narrow escape and to tell how,
like the renowned Sibthorpius, he kept the bridge (pass] “ in the brave days of old,” and he may do so with more justice than many stringers together of sentences who profess to edify their hearers with talcs of greater pretension ; for according to all accounts he stood the charge most manfully, fired at
the rhinoceros in his rush, and, failing to stop it, was knocked fairly and forcibly over, falling with his back to the earth and his feet to the foe, stunned and insensible, waking afterwards to the agreeable conviction of safety and of succour, and it is the lot of few men to pass unscathed through such an ordeal.
[80] I am promised full particulars of a Rhinoceros Hunt on foot on the banks of the Goggut, in which Capt. G., single-handed, killed the largest brute of the genus ever seen in Rungpore. Should it reach me in time this number, I will send it, Mr. East, as a postscipt to this letter, which you will probably think requires a little more bread to balance the intolerable quantity of sack I have presented to your readers.
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Eastward Ho!
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