A liming time had by all

I PAUSED halfway up the steep slope to catch my breath, my clothes drenched with sweat, my balance unsteady after climbing several hundred feet on a surface as slippery as snow. Ahead of me, the dark forest echoed to the familiar cry of hounds in hot pursuit of their quarry.

Occasionally, a curious screech emanated from the depths of a distant gorge as one hunter communicated with another. But this was no pastoral scene from the shires: the temperature was an energy-sapping 90F (32C), the greasy surface was not snow but the rotted floor of a tropical rainforest, and our prey an elusive wild hog. Only the dozen or so English-cross-American foxhounds, of which I had caught an occasional glimpse during the past three hours, lent familiarity to the alien environment.

Hunting might have been suspended in Britain, but not in Trinidad. We had been walking for three hours in a rainforest so badly infested with snakes that, to discourage them, hounds and human beings had been doused with ammonia from the knees down.

In common with my 10 companions, I carried a canvas rucksack over my shoulder containing food and a miner's lamp, and, as if in recognition of Trinidad's past reputation for piracy, a machete - which my hosts insisted on calling a cutlass - dangled from my belt. I needed it to cut through near-impenetrable groves of rampant, prickly vegetation. I grabbed hold of a Roseau Palm as I slithered backwards down a slope, and then had to extract 100 little black splinters from my hands. While doing so, my attention was briefly caught by one of the many azure butterflies that meander haphazardly through the sultry air like drunken hummingbirds.

By the end of a long day, we had caught two agouti - extraordinary creatures with hairy chestnut rumps that can only be described as a cross between a muntjac deer and a guinea pig - and the even more bizarre lappe. This is an oversized, hare-like animal, about which even the internet has little to say, other than how delicious it is to eat. When pursued by hounds, it frequently takes to one of the many mountain streams that dissect the forest, swimming long distances underneath the crystal-clear water and needing only a second or two to catch its breath before resubmerging.

Oscar Wilde's eloquent denunciation of English foxhunters as the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable could never be levelled at the Trinidad hunters, who pride themselves on eating everything they kill. Indeed, almost more time is devoted to the preparation and cooking of the catch than to its pursuit.

For this reason, the quarry, which may be wild pig, deer, agouti, or lappe, is always shot by one of the members of the hunt who is trusted to carry a gun, and never actually killed by the hounds, whose role is to find and hunt.

On my first day with Mr Bholan's hounds, a deer they had hunted for more than an hour was shot cleanly. The celebrations that followed were more in anticipation of fresh wild meat than a tribute to the hard work of the pack.

On arrival back at the suburban plot that doubles as Master's residence and Hunt Kennels, coconuts were knocked down from the palms, split open, and the milk greedily drunk as a prelude to some serious liming, the description given to the Caribbean pastime of hanging around eating, talking and drinking; a sort of laid-back hunt committee meeting conducted in torn T-shirts and scruffy trousers.

Earlier, while running after the pack, I had passed a shack on stilts, on which, painted in large green letters, was the legend: "No liming, unless I am present." The pastime is as integral to life here as the sun.

Unlike hunting in the UK, which is governed by its own authority, the sport in Trinidad is subject to government law, with a system of licensing in place, as befits a country with its own biodiversity action plan. A government that is refreshingly supportive issues licences for the price of $20 per species; this gives the holder the right to hunt for four months during the open season and an additional month when he may hunt with hounds, but no gun.

As Kevin Watchet, the president of the East Trinidad Hunters' Association, explained to me one morning, there are thousands of hunters in Trinidad, all of whom keep packs of hounds at home in their back yards. Many are said to value their hounds more than they value their wives.

The Conservation of Wildlife Act of 1997 stipulates all sorts of conditions that members of the Hunters' Association of Trinidad and Tobago are happy to comply with, such as the protection of endangered species and the outlawing of certain practices. This organisation acts as an umbrella for various regional ones and, in 1999, celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Inspecting the legislation that is in place, one could be forgiven for assuming that there has been some collaboration with the Middle Way Group, which has recently drafted proposals for licensed hunting over here, so similar is some of the text.

Most hunting in Trinidad does not take place on private land but on state-owned ground, where boundaries are clearly defined. Hunting agouti on the shores of the Atlantic, I was astonished to come across several hunts in operation, all happily going about their business without reference to hunt territories. Here, it is first come, first served, which might explain the insistence of my host, Bob Severattan, that I get out of bed at 4am every day for the duration of my stay. The consequence of this early start was that we later spent at least six hours chewing on curried game as we waited for the sun to go down, tired hounds stretched out in the shade while their owners limed the hours away in a display of contentment that epitomises hunting in Trinidad.

Hunting abroad

India

• Ootcamund Hunt Club.

  Honorary Secretary: Major Virendra Kumar, Defence Services Staff College, Wellington 643231, Tamil Nadu, India; 0091 423 33111. They hunt jackal from July- March and meet once a month..

  Kenya

• Mr Bell's Hounds.

  Master and Huntsman: Tristan Voorspuy, c/o Deloraine Estate, PO Rongai, Kenya; 00254 362 32005. The only remaining mounted pack in East Africa. Hounds hunt a drag line.

  New Zealand

• Mangonui Hunt.

  Hon Sec: Shirley Ann Morey, Rangiputa Beach, RD3, Kaitaia, New Zealand; 0064 (9) 408 7060. They hunt hare and meet on 32 days from April-July.

  Australia

• Hunter Valley Hunt.

  Hon Sec: Bruce Russ, Echo East, 409 Old North Rd, Lochinvar, NSW 2321; 0061 2 4930 7654. They meet on Sundays from April- September and hunt fox.