20 ADVANTAGES FOR ELEPHANT-CATCHING. 



irrigation, are very beautiful. The jungle is so close at hand to the cast 

 that pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, and partridges can be heard sounding their cheery 

 cries, the sportsman's pleasant reveille, before daybreak. Such a place as 

 Morlay for sport surely never existed, at least for diversity of game. Within 

 a radius of half a mile of my bungalow, elephants, tigers, panthers, bears, 

 pig, and spotted-deer ; and a little beyond, bison, sambur, two kinds of ante- 

 lope, and bustard, are to be found ; whilst good duck, pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, 

 and snipe shooting are at my very doors. Any one acquainted with Indian 

 shooting-grounds will know that such a variety of game is rarely found in 

 one place. 



Morlay is not, however, a very healthy place, and my people and myself 

 have all suffered severely from fever at various times. The least healthy 

 months are from November to February, when the nights are cold, with 

 occasional fogs, and the days hot ; and if the rains (from June to November) 

 are excessive and continuous the dampness caused gives rise to fever and 

 dysentery. 



I had with me until lately at Morlay an overseer named Jones. Bom 

 and bred in the country, he understood natives well, and talked Canarese, 

 Hindoostiini, Tamil, and Teloogoo fluently. He was, moreover, skilful and 

 patient in managing the large bodies of ignorant villagers we employed 

 on occasions, and his services were invaluable. He had a wife and two 

 children, but one child soon succumbed to fever, as did also an old European 

 pensioner and his wife whom I employed to preserve my sporting trophies. 

 During our second year at Morlay we lost at the rate of two hundred per 

 mille per annum amongst servants, &c, which is, I believe, about five times 

 the death-rate of the most unhealthy towns in England. 



We did better afterwards, however, and Morlay is such an advantageous 

 and delightful place for my work, that I have stuck to it through all vicissi- 

 tudes; but Jones has lately had to leave it on account of his health, so I am 

 now the last, as I was the first, European there. 



I knew Morlay for three years prior to the time of taking up my 

 residence near it in September 1873. I had shot one or two pro- 

 scribed solitary elephants in the neighbourhood, and had then noticed 

 the advantages it presented for elephant-catching — at least I remembered 

 them afterwards, when I was casting about for a suitable locality for a 

 commencement. 



Morlay itself is a village, or rather two villages in one, those of Dod 

 (large), and Chick (little), Morlay. The two are within a quarter of a mile 

 of each other, and the families are all inter-allied. The people are Oqpligas, 

 or salt-makers, and the manufacture of earth-salt is the legitimate calling of 



