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Updated: June 2, 2025
Instead of birds and ground game being wounded time after time, at big battues they are killed stone dead by some well-known and acknowledged good shot.
Returning from a spectacle such as I have attempted to describe, one cannot help feeling how immeasurably it exceeds in interest those royal battues where timid deer are driven in crowds to unresisting slaughter; or those vaunted "wild sports" the amusement of which appears to be in proportion to the effusion of blood.
The comparatively small number of tigers killed was, however, a source of disappointment; since the utility of these battues, in which the superior fire-arms and appliances of the English are brought into action for the destruction of these ferocious animals, may be estimated from the damage done by them in the wilder parts of India, "which is beyond the belief even of Indo-European residents, and must, consequently, appear an exaggeration to distant Englishmen.
There were shooting-parties and battues; there was a plenty of balls and entertainments at the hospitable Court; the society was generally good; the theatre excellent; and the living cheap. "And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable person," our new friend said. "With such a representative, and and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to be most eligible. Good-night, gentlemen."
I like better than most things a day with my own dogs in scattered covers, when I know not what may rise a woodcock, an odd pheasant, a snipe in the out-lying willow-bed, and perhaps a mallard or a teal. A hare or two falls in agreeably when the mistress of the house takes an interest in the bag. I detest battues and hot corners, and slaughter for slaughter's sake.
These great public hunts or battues are conducted under certain rules. The proprietor of the land must have invited the other natives, and must be present himself, for should these regulations be violated a very bloody fight is certain to take place.
He was a sufficiently keen sportsman to save appearances with his class; enjoyed a walk after the partridges indeed, with a friend or two, as much as most men; and played the host at the two or three great battues of the year with a propriety which his grandfather however no longer mistook for enthusiasm. There was nothing much to distinguish him from any other able man of his rank.
Poor creatures! they did all the hard work of the camp-building, food-hunting, waiting, and serving. Occasionally, however, the men did condescend to go out fishing, and they would also organise battues when a big supply of food was wanted. These great hunting-parties, by the way, were arranged on an immense scale, and fire figured largely in them.
In these battues, those who have fire-arms form two sides of a triangle, and are placed with their backs to the wind, along the roads which border the wood the traqueurs are about to beat.
Before we broke up M. A. announced the programme for the next day. Breakfast for all the men at eight o'clock in the dining-room, and an immediate start for the woods; luncheon at the Pavilion d'Hiver at twelve in the woods, the ladies invited to join the shooters and follow one or two battues afterward.
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