154 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



indignant at being disturbed. Another two miles and 

 I came upon an orderly. He said that two camels were 

 on ahead carrying the cooking pots and cook's boxes. 

 This was something. At the eighth mile I came up with 

 these camels. Leading the head rope of the first was my 

 new cook and with him his assistant. To my indignant 

 enquiries the cook said that the camel men had stayed 

 behind in the bazaar, as had the rest of the servants, 

 and they would not be out for hours. The sequel to 

 this march was that I reached my destination at sunset 

 and sat in a cold bungalow — and it is cold at night up 

 in these parts in January — for an hour or two, most 

 of it in the dark. When the camels arrived I had to 

 assist in unloading them, a job of which I was entirely 

 ignorant. We had an exciting time of it ; more especi- 

 ally as both were refractory, obstinate brutes, and one 

 had the reputation of being a biter and he lived up to his 

 reputation. Approaching unwarily I had one snap of his 

 great yellow fangs in my face and that was enough for me. 

 The brute pitched off one box of crockery (it is always the 

 crockery that comes to grief) before we got him unloaded, 

 and his appalling groans and grunts would have led anyone 

 to infer that we were roasting him alive. Disagreeable- 

 natured brutes these camels. 



It was a few mornings afterwards that I went out to look 

 for spotted deer. The season was early for them yet as their 

 horns are mostly in velvet at this time of the year, but one 

 sometimes has the luck to get one clean. I at the time did 

 not know the difference in seasons up here as contrasted 

 with those in other parts of India ; a point moreover which 

 has certainly not received a proper amount of attention in 

 the past and which, of course, proves the futihty of making 

 one set of game laws apphcable to the whole country. 



To return to the morning in question, I had been told that 

 a herd of chital, as the spotted deer is called in these parts, 

 usually retired to the heavy forests to lie up for the day in a 

 certain direction and I had arranged with my orderly to go 

 out and see if we could obtain a good head. I had not 

 done much spotted deer shooting at that time and I 

 was keen on getting a good head or two and a record if 

 possible. 



Ere the sun rose next morning we were en route. The 

 morning air was bitterly cold and I well remember how it 



