SHOOTING TRIPS IN CENTRAL PROVINCES 79 



to the small Station between dawn and the eleven or twelve 

 o'clock breakfast ; or one might arrive by night and be 

 found lying up in your back garden in the morning ! 

 Instances are on record of such occurrences, and most 

 amusing they usually were in their denouement. 



Elephants roamed these jungles ; gaur or bison were 

 plentiful, as also buffalo. Sambhar, with lordly heads of 

 well over 40 inches — 43, 44, 45 's — were to be had (a record 

 single dropped horn of 48 inches was picked up in Khandeish) 

 for the looking for. Spotted deer heads vied with those of 

 Northern India and Nepal in size, whilst the smaller animals, 

 not to mention game birds, swarmed. 



Palmy days were those in the Central Provinces when 

 you might easily meet a tiger or get khubbar of one during 

 the ordinary morning's routine work in the jungle, or run 

 upon the fresh tracks of bison, buffalo or sambhar. And 

 the jungles were not overshot, not at the period of which I 

 am writing. The powerful cordite rifle had not come into 

 existence, and, more important, railways did not exist. 

 The mail ran across from Allahabad to Bombay, passing 

 through part of these jungles, but as a main line only ; and 

 the Bengal-Nagpur Railway ended at Nagpur. None of 

 the new branch lines had been constructed, and conse- 

 quently the jungles were difficult to get at and shoot. Their 

 dehghts were therefore practically confined to the local 

 district officials and an occasional friend or stray traveller ; 

 and these latter rarities were very occasional and extremely 

 stray ! And, mind you, the district official of that day 

 needed those gorgeous jungles sorely, for he had no other 

 relaxation during his long years of exile. He did not get 

 home every three years or less as now. He was not so 

 constantly transferred about the country, and he could not 

 get away on short leave to the hills in the hot weather and 

 rains, or down to Calcutta for the delights of Christmas 

 week. All these amenities to Anglo-Indian life now exist. 

 The railways have given them to us. But their enjoyment 

 has not been an unmixed blessing ; for the facihties which 

 have rendered them possible have also resulted in an influx 

 of keen sportsmen into every fine jungle in the Provinces 

 with a consequent rapid and alarming decrease in the game. 

 I would not be understood to say that these jungles do not 

 afford magnificent sport at the present day. They do. 

 But protection has come in. Very rightly so. The Game 



