The senses are regularly tuned up, and the limbs are in
the same condition from continual exercise.
There is a peculiar delight, which passes all description, in
feeling thoroughly well-strung, mentally and physically, with a
good rifle in your hand and a trusty gun-bearer behind you with
another, thus stalking quietly through a fine country, on the
look-out for "anything," no matter what. There is a delightful
feeling of calm excitement, if I might so express it, which
nothing but wild sports will give. There is no time when a man
knows himself so thoroughly as when he depends upon himself, and
this forms his excitement. With a thorough confidence in the
rifle and a bright lookout, he stalks noiselessly along the open
glades, picking out the softest places, avoiding the loose stones
or anything that would betray his steps; now piercing the deep
shadows of the jungles, now scanning the distant plains, nor
leaving a nook or hollow unsearched by his vigilant gaze. The
fresh breakage of a branch, the barking of a tree-stem, the
lately nibbled grass, with the sap still oozing from the delicate
blade, the disturbed surface of a pool; everything is noted, even
to the alarmed chatter of a bird : nothing is passed unheeded by
an experienced hunter.
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