The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-11 00:00:00

THE PRINCE OF WALES'S SPORT IN
NEPAIJL.

The following is an extract from an interesting letter from
the Special Correspondent of The Times (sent by telegraph),
under date liundia Ghat, March 5 :

The Prince of Wales's interesting excursions to the
Terai were brought to a close yesterday, when he
killed his last tiger in Nepaul—a very fine animal—
not far from the camp. To-day he left Nepaul, and
he is now again in British territory. When these lines
reach London he will be preparing for his journey to
Bareilly by road. He will dine there with the 18th
Royal Irish, and continue his route by rail that night
to Allahabad. To say that the Prince has enjoyed his
jungle life exceedingly would be certainly true, and
those who were mainly concerned in securing good
sport for him have been gratified to learn that their
efforts were fully appreciated, and that the Prince's
expectations were not disappointed.
Jung Bahadoor was resolved that the Prince oi
Wales should have tigers to kill and he is a man whose
resolutions generally are thorough, and when he means
killing tigers he sees it is done... Twenty-eight tigers
have been killed—the great majority by the Prince of
Wales. Bears, leopards, great numbers of deer, and
some small game have also been added to what can
scarcely be called the bag with propriety, when it, is
considered that tigers form the bulk of the contents.
The preparations have been carefully worked out on a
colossal scale' and not a mile of jangle in the angle has
been left unbeaten or unguarded? but tigers have
escaped nevertheless. It has been great good fortune
that no one has been seriously hurt in the expedition.
The Mahouts and elephanaclawed by tigers last week
are doing well. The Prince has lived among the
natives, and, although there were regiments of soldiers,
they were there for the purpose of doing him honour,
and not for the security of his person. His Mahout,
who was accused of timidity yesterday when the big
tiger was lying down said, "Why should I not he afraid
of having the Shahzadah, who had trusted hinself to me,
hurt?" The only hurt the Prince has had was caused
by the stings of bees upon his face, but they were ex.
oeedingly painful for the time. Some curious things
have been seen in Nepaul. The day the Prince
crossed the Sardah and visited Jung Bahadoor's camp,
he was shown an enormous boa constrictor, which was
dug out of its hole in a lethargic state, and roused
to some sort of life by buckets of water poured
down its throat, which it scornfully ejected. It was
as thick as a nine-pounder, and some 18 feet long, and!
it seemed an amiable reptile; but close at hand, coiled
round a branch of a tree, was another python, which
was of more evil disposition, for when Jung Bahadoor
sent up a man to cut the branch, CO that the serpent
fell with a heavy thud to the ground, it raised its
head menacingly and moved over once or twice as if to
attack, but eventually coiled itself round the
branch, and, like a true philosopher, went to sleep.
The collection of living birds given by Jung
Bahadoor to the Prince of Wales is most interest-
ing and complete. It comprises many Impeyan
pheasants, which the Nepaulese call " duffa," and
argus, which, they call " monal," the name by which
the former are known by us, Kaleege, Cogplass, and
Shickore jungle fowl, in addition to other animals of
all kinds, and a delightful little elephant, which the
Prince rides as a pony, and which takes up his whip,
salaams, and performs many tricks. There was also a
novel exhibition in fishing to vary the amusements.
Elephants were sent into a pool, at each end of which
were upright nets. Outside these nets were rafts of
reeds, on which men sat. The fish, driven up to the
nets by the elephants, leaped clear over, but fell on to
the rafts, where they were knocked on the head by the
men.
The military exercises have been already deseribed,
but a dance by the Maharajah's band the other
night to the strains of "La Cracovienne," convinced
every one who saw it, that Jung Bahadoor, when he
went home from London, had ordered the perform-
ances he had seen at the Opera to be learnt, and that
the dance was strictly imitated from some ballet in
vogue at Her Majesty's Theatre. This dance was per-
, formed in front of the camp tire, which is an after-
dinner institution, and which Jungßahadoor attended,
to pay his respects to the Prince and arrange for the
next day's sport, regularly every evening. His favourite
mode of making short journeys, such as that from his
camp to the Prince's, is on the back of his faithful I
domestic, who carries him at the rate of five or six
miles an hour....

THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF
PRINCE BISMARCK.
The Daily Hews says :—" The Republique Francaise
recently published extracts of the private correspond-
ence of Prince Bismarck, taken from a collection of
letters which appeared in Germany a short time ago.
These letters—most of them written to his wife and to
intimate friends—depict the German Chancellor in
very favourable colours. The letters are manly in
tone, abounding in touches of subdued humour and
piquant observation, and, what is more important,
carry on the face of them distinct evidence that they
were never intended for publication. The impression
which even Frenchmen of the present day must derive
from a perusal of these letters cannot but tend
to modify the estimate they have not unnatu-
rally formed of one whom they regard as the
arch enemy of the world in general, and
of France in particular. It would be hopeless to at-
tempt within the space of a few lines anything like a
summary of the period and events to which these
letters refer, for they take us from the very outset of
the Chancellor's public career down to a comparatively
recent period, though the supplement to the present
volumes, containing his private correspondence for the
last decade, will, if it is ever given to the world, pos.
sees a still more universal interest. Not the least
attractive of the letters are those written from the
German Embassy at St. Petersburg, and, on his transfer
thence to Paris, from various parts of France. Prince
Bismarck's mission to France in 1862 was of only short
duration, but he found time between May and October
to take part at several official ceremonies at the
Tuileries, to have 'a little quiet talk' with the Em-
peror, and to make a tour through South-Western
France and the Pyrenees. He also managed to pay a
flying visit to London for the Exhibition, and his de-
scription of the residence occupied by the Prussian
Ambassador to England (Prussia House) is very
characteristic of the man. After going into details as
to the cramped accommodation which the house affords,
he tells his wife that 'the kitchen is in the cellar and
the servants sleep in the roof; it would give me the
blues to live in such a place.' He next writes from
Paris to say that, as all the world is out of town—
the Court being at St. Cloud and its satellites in
their chateaux—he shall be off to the South and
visit Bordeaux, Biarritz, tl- e Spanish frontier, and
so back by way of Pau and Toulouse to Paris. From
Biarritz, whore, three summers afterwards, he had
those interviews with the Emn.ror Napoleon the first
result of which was Sadowa, and the t-,eboini Sedan,
he sends his wife a most glowing de.,cription of that
wd:toriug-place and the neighbourhood, exalting its
glokies far above those of the Drachenfeis and Ebren•
breitstein. But, as has been already said, it is not by
one or even by several extracts from these letters that
any adequate idea of their general tone can be con-
veyed. They must convince every reader of at least
—this—that the great Chancellor would have made his
fortune as a 'special correspondent' if he had been
thrown upon the resources of his pen."