CHAPTER IV 



A CENTRAL PROVINCE SHOOT IN 1921 



" Agar Firdos beh rue zameenast " — 

 (' If there is a Paradise on earth ' — ) 



In the winter of 1920 my wife and I had a success- 

 ful motor tour of 3500 miles, driving ourselves 

 from Kashmir up to the Afghan Frontier and 

 thence through Northern and Central India, with- 

 out a chauffeur and with no involuntary stops 

 except two punctures and one tyre burst. 



We finished our trip in February 1921 with 

 twenty-five miles of vmmetalled, and in parts 

 rocky, road to our block in the Central Provinces. 



We were at some height. Our surroundings 

 and the climate were delightful. There was a 

 sting in the air at night. The season was an 

 early one, and throughout the first stages of our 

 road the mango blossom was beginning to show 

 in strength ; while in the jungle everywhere were 

 the signs of the dak : — 



" Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 

 Cover a hundred leagues and seem 

 To set the hills on fire." 



And already there was a whiff of the glorious 

 never-to-be-forgotten, dry, burnt smell of a Central 

 Province hot weather jungle. 



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