A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 39 



only single-fly 80 lb. tents, because I always 

 insisted on camping under really big shady 

 banyan trees, even though these might involve 

 our being six or seven miles away from the ground 

 we were working. I noticed the difference in my 

 servants. Under the big trees they were well. 

 In one camp we had to occupy wattle and thatch 

 huts without tree shade ; neither of my servants 

 was well, and one of them had considerable head- 

 ache and bleeding at the nose. A single really 

 big tree gets more wind than a grove of trees, and 

 is much cooler. 



My tent was always so pitched that a hurdle 

 screen of grass faced the prevailing wind. While 

 water was kept on this it was so cold inside that 

 I had to have a blanket round my middle during 

 the midday rest. 



We were lucky in our trees ; there were 

 many really fine banyans. Two of the biggest 

 measured, in the circumference of their midday 

 shade, 190 and 228 yards respectively. Parrots, 

 green pigeons, and crows made these trees their 

 haunt and were in some ways a nuisance. I made 

 a point of building mounds to meet the down- 

 coming shoots of these great banyans, thus hasten- 

 ing nature's beautiful process of extending their 

 growth and ensuring their continuance for hun- 

 dreds of years. In one tree we built up fourteen 

 such. I pay a man a small annual sum for 

 doing this to a favourite tree in the Kadir. But 

 he is an idle rogue. The goats eat most of the 

 shoots. 



My friend B. had lent me two shikaris for this 

 trip : Iseri Singh, a Thakur, and Ram Huruk, a 



