two yards, in spite
of which he rushed straight on, knocked me clean over, and while passing
me made the usual dangerously effective jerk I have alluded to above, by
which he cut my _boot from the ankle to the thigh_, drew a little blood
just above and inside of the knee; after which the boar rushed headlong
for about thirty yards and dropped dead. I found that my bullet had
smashed through his forehead straight between the eyes and gone into his
brain.

He was an enormous brute, weighing when cleaned twenty-one stone;
carrying the finest tusks I have seen anywhere as belonging to a wild
boar. I only had one man with me; we were what may be called eight miles
from anywhere. Still I was determined not to leave my prize; so I sent
my man for a country waggon, and sitting down on my now harmless beast,
smoked cigarettes and waited quietly till the vehicle came.

Now, _apropos_ to wild boar attacking people, I am convinced that this
animal had no intention of attacking me.

He was, though badly wounded by the first shot, running from the dogs,
and I got in his way. _Voila tout_! On only one other occasion I nearly
came to grief while boar shooting. On my arriving at a Turkish village
one night, I was told that there was an enormous boar in the
neighbourhood, who for a long time had been the terror of the country,
inasmuch as he, accompanied by a large party of the pig tribe, had
rooted up the crops all round the village, destroyed gardens, and
tradition even said had killed children and eaten them (this latter
story I don't take in). However, the poor people prayed me with tears in
their eyes to rid them of their enemy, which I promised to do if
possible. So the next morning off we started in the following order:
first, myself and friends, accompanied by the elders of the village
armed with old-fashioned guns; then the young men with knives and big
sticks, the women and children bringing up the rear as lookers-on. I and
my two friends were escorted into the centre of a large wood, in which
very original _seats in trees_ had been knocked up for us. The object of
these seats was for our personal safety, but I as a sportsman saw at
once that to be up a tree was not only advantageous in that respect, but
also that we should be much more invisible, hidden among the branches of
a tree, than by being stationed on the ground. So we mounted our trees,
and the beaters went into the woods some half a mile from us. I never
heard suc