xm DEER AND ANTELOPE 153 



two were not as good as those I had, so I never 

 fired my rifle. Still the trip was good, and the 

 country as beautiful as ever. I think, however, 

 that the Kashmiris are getting more and more 

 grasping in their demands. 



Gond. — I spent a delightful ten days at 

 Christmas onee with my friend C. He had a line 

 of elephants, and we used to beat with them all 

 day, with occasional days after chital and small 

 game in between. We got five good stag, and I got 

 an exceptionally good head, which I still have, but 

 whose measurements are not within my reach, as I 

 write in the jungle. He was beautifully mounted 

 by Van Ingen, and I lent him to the R.A. Mess, 

 Meerut, with the natural result that he was allowed 

 in about three years to become moth-eaten, and is 

 now reduced to horns and skull. Mounted heads 

 are always an anxiety. They are fatal in a public 

 place, where they never get the attention they 

 require. 



This stag I shot alongside my elephant. He 

 had crouched hoping to avoid detection, and 

 would have done so but for keen-eyed Babu of 

 the Meerut Tent Club. 



Sambhur. — These animals undoubtedly give 

 grand sport and I have pursued them in all parts 

 of India. My best head was 41 inches, and I got 

 this in a rotten way. In 1922 I was sitting up 

 near a river, for a tigress which I subsequently 

 killed. She was a flighty uncertain creature, and 

 when I heard her grunting and yawning first up- 

 and then down-stream I tucked myself up for a 

 solid undisturbed night's sleep. I was awakened 

 by a splashing of feet in the water, which 



