20 INDIAN BIG GAME 



with the 8 -bore at close range in good moonh'ght 

 over white sand. However, we put in buffaloes 

 next day and retrieved him dead. Old Kurera 

 had to climb hurriedly up a tree to get out of the 

 way of our stampeding charging buffaloes. 



In 1920, while waiting to join C. on his Nepal 

 shoot, my wife and I were given permission, 

 through C.'s kindly offices, to shoot the private 

 preserves of the Maharajah of Kapurthala. These 

 preserves made a little paradise full of chital, 

 nilghai, and pig, with a few panther. There 

 were no tiger in it. We were sorry to leave this 

 charming and hospitable spot, where there was a 

 delightful bungalow, comfortably furnished, with 

 a large compound full of trees in which lived in- 

 numerable monkeys ; and we amused ourselves 

 often in the evenings watching simian family 

 life. 



There were numbers of butterflies which with 

 their variety and brilliant colouring tempted us 

 both, my wife especially, to catch them. 



Our amusements were varied, as besides the 

 shooting, we motored sometimes in a car which had 

 been put at our disposal ; and our two elephants 

 were an endless source of joy as we watched 

 their toilets and laughed over their idiosyncrasies. 

 They took us many a mile up the river, which 

 abounded with mugger, and my wife was never 

 tired of stalking these with a kodak and watching 

 me shoot them. I remember one which slipped 

 into the water after I had shot it dead, as I 

 thought, and it was afterwards picked up and 

 dragged many miles back to camp. When it 

 was cut open it proved to have at least thirty 



