From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the contributions
of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry.
Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this
field--the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece
or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree--we go
forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions
throng, tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of
the four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the
Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the
Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the
Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be the
game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate exclusively
with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he climbs, each summer, the
great passes of Central Asia, "the roof of the world," and makes his
way to the frontier of Siberia, beyond 50 deg. north.
The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by simplicity
and a strict attention to business. The nature of the ground over
which he works inexorably prescribes this. The superfluities of the
fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with his dog-cart cannot be his.
Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, with alpenstock on occasion, about
comprise his kit. He may be attended by a hound or two, but not a
pack. He wants no yelling.
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