T2 INTRODUCTION. 



At about the age of twelve I was allowed a single- 

 barrelled gun, and at fourteen, when staying at 

 Catton Hall, as the guest of Lady Wilmot Horton, 

 I shot my first pheasant on the wing and my first 

 hare running in a wood; shortly after this my father 

 died at Hastings, after an illness of several weeks. 



At the age of seventeen, I passed out direct into 

 the Indian Service from the Kensington Grammar 

 School, going up to the India Office for my examin- 

 ation. On the 27th January, 1862, I embarked in 

 the Peninsula and Oriental Company's SS. " Mool- 

 tan," for Alexandria, visiting Cairo en route, doing 

 the Pyramids, etc., then travelling across the desert 

 by rail to Suez, where I boarded another P. and O. 

 Steamer, "The Nubia," which landed me in Bombay 

 somewhere about a month from the date of 

 departure. 



At Bombay I was hospitably put up by the Chief 

 Magistrate till my orders came for me to join the 

 72nd Highlanders, at Mhow, with whom I remained 

 six months learning my profession, being drilled 

 through the various ranks of private and non-com- 

 missioned officer upwards. I then had to march 

 nearly 200 miles in the rainy season and join the 1 3th 

 Bombay N.I., at Neemuch, and the difficulty and 

 hardship of that journey I am not likely to forget. In 

 the cold weather of that year I marched 285 miles 

 with the regiment to Ahmedabad, in the Province 

 of Guzerat, where I had splendid shooting for 

 about two and a half years ; game consisting of an 

 occasional panther, any amount of antelope, and 



