When I was walking round part of my plantation one morning with my manager, and we chanced to stand in a path for a few moments (I forget now for what reason), my dogs went down the hill into the coffee, and appear there to have disturbed a boar.  Luckily for myself, I always keep a sharp look out, and my eye caught a glimpse of something black coming up amongst the coffee.  In a single second a boar appeared in the path some twenty yards away.  The path sloped downwards towards me, and at me he came, like an arrow from a bow.  As there was no use in my attempting to arrest the progress of an animal of this kind, I stepped aside and let him into my manager, who, luckily for himself, was standing behind a broken off coffee tree, which stood at a sharp turn in the path some yards further on.  The result was very remarkable.  The boar’s chest struck against the coffee tree and slightly bent it on one side.  This threw the boar upwards, and, of course, broke the force of the charge, but there was still enough force left to toss my manager into an adjacent shallow pit with such violence that his ear was filled with earth.  I was now seriously alarmed, as I had no weapon of any kind, but luckily the boar went on.  His tusk, it appeared, had caught the manager—­a man of about six feet, and thirteen stone in weight—­under the armpit, but had merely torn his coat.  We organized a beat the same afternoon, and killed the boar, which was suffering from an old wound, and this no doubt accounted, in some degree, for his sudden and gratuitous attack.  Tigers often attack the wild boar, and there are often desperate battles between them, and well authenticated instances have been known of the boar killing the tiger.  I have never met with one in my neighbourhood, though I once aided in killing a tiger which had been ripped in several places by a boar.  As it is impossible in jungly districts to ride the wild boar, he is invariably shot, except when, in the monsoon rains, he is occasionally speared.  At that season the wild pigs make houses, or rather shelters, for themselves by cutting with their teeth and bending over some of the underwood, and under these they repose.  When such shelters are discovered, a man approaches them cautiously and drives his spear through the shelter into the boar’s back.  I have never seen this done, but have often heard of its being done where I lived in former days, during the rainy season.

Boar’s head pickled in vinegar and garnished with onions makes a good dish, especially after harvest, when the pigs are in good condition, but, from what I have known of the habits of the wild boar, I do not think I should ever be inclined to partake of it again, and certainly not when cholera is about.  A neighbour of mine told me that when he was once beating a jungle for game the natives backed out of it with great promptness, having come upon wild pigs in the act of devouring the dead bodies of some people who had died of cholera.