Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-10-18
ACCURSED
OF ALLAH.

BY MAJOR R. L. BULLARD.


They haunt the SWEET potato patches
and rice fields of the Moros, these
wild hogs of the Island Of Mindanao.
As the most omnivorous of animals,
they live, thrive and fill the land
where other game, monodietists, fail
and perish from the earth. Roots,
barks and nuts, fruits, seeds, grasses,
vegetables and herbs, bugs, grasshop-
Ders, worms and insects, snakes, "var-
Enints," all flesh, living or dead, fresh
or putrid, are their food. "They come
out near sunset" the old dato told
me, "and at night they break our
fences and destroy our potatoes and
rice. We kill but few of them, be-
cause their touch defles a Mussul-
man. They are the vilest of all ami
mails; the nonucs, which are devils,
live In them and they are accused
of Allah" The young dato smiled
furtively. "But we will show you
how to get Them" said he.
The dato's seed lands lay in
stretch Of gently rolling hills covered
with tall, thick cogon grass, broken
frequently with hollows of deep, i'm
penetrable thickets of bamboo and
brush loaded with convolvulus and all
the vines, creepers and parasites Of
the tropics. Here and there were
clumps Of fruit-bearing trees and lines
OF graceful, feathery, lyre-like ham
boos, marking the sites and earthen
walls of Moro cottas, forts, long
since abandoned by restless masters
for fresher fields and newer homes.
Yonder was an old sweet potato
patch, covered still, notwithstanding
long human neglect, with luxuriant
vines-for these were cultivated and
throve by the very roofing they re-
cieved of the wild hogs seeking food.
Many pig-trails crossed each other
in the tall cogon, which, close kin to
sugar cane, had, also, like the old
potato patch, been ploughed about for
its sweet roots by the wild hogs.
Over there a little way was bit of
rice ground fenced closely with strong
bamboo Stats and rattan withes and
set about with rattle-traps of dry
bamboo. A Moro Waterman doing in
q miniature tower from time to time
jerked cord and set his traps rat
Ting and Gathering to brighten away
marauding boars and birds Surely
this was the spot, none better, for the
wild boar. Food, cover, bed, safety
were all here.
Disrnounting, | tied General Bald
win" to a shrub and began a creeping
hunt among the trails and cogon. l
gradually wandered to where clump
OF wavy bamboo marked the site of
an ancient Gotta. To such places the
wild bear loves - come and rum1nate
and ponder. / loitered to watch. It
was a dreamy afternoon, with the ca
ressing air of an Indian summer.
Gradually I came under the spell of
the day and the place and, forgetting
my errand, fell to wondering what
had been the lives of the savage men
and women who once dwelt within
those Gotta walls; then to listening
to the rustic of the grass and the
ghostly, hollow grooming and craking
OF the Mmboo stems, swaying against
each other by the wind.
After a time l began to perceive
that | was not the only occupant of
the Gotta; big, black, bristling OBJ
tect emerged slowly, majestically,
from the rank grass in one corner. l
was startled. Was it bear? Yes?
MOI Then I remembered. There he
stood a lordly boar, young and Wig
orous, slowly turning his broad left