47 



has often been fairly ridden down. I have never succeeded in gettiug 

 within spear's length of one, even under very favorable circumstances. 

 I was beaten after a run of four miles over unexceptionable ground, 

 and when riding under eleven stone four pounds, saddle and spear 

 included, on a powerful Arab just out of training and the winner 

 not long before of some good races at Bombay, by a gaunt grey 

 brute, that lobbed along hardly four horses' length in front of me 

 the entire distance, a good example of : 



" The wolf's long gallop that can tire" 

 " The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire." 



I did not press him at first however as from all I have since seen 

 or heard of riding at wild animals I believe I should have done in 

 this case. I had an excellent start, " &fair field ;" to wit the plain 

 between the Native Cavalry lines at Bowenpilly, near Secunderabad, 

 and Bolarum the Cantonment of the Nizam's troops and " no favor" 

 I was light and young : and in those days as far as riding goes, now 

 that I am old and shattered, I may say, as do Scotch women of 

 their children, 



" For one better you might find ten worse ;" 



but, be this as it may, I was very handsomely beaten from start to 

 finish. 



Are the wolf like dogs often seen about villages, hybrids or 

 merely a slight remove, from the original type ? Close to the ground 

 I have just mentioned, I once laid my greyhounds into one of these 

 animals, thinking he was a large jackal, and when they were worry- 

 ing him, that he was a young wolf, and not finding out, until I saw 

 the brand of a firing iron on his flank that he must once have 

 belonged to some one. All natives of India place much faith in 

 the actual cautery as a remedy for almost any disease. The more 

 barbarously deep and wantonly fantastic, the better. When hurt 

 themselves they are apt to make an outcry and invoke sympathy, 

 but for pain in others or in animals, they have not the faintest con- 

 sideration. The worst of all are the " Aristocracy? as I have heard 

 the holy men termed, of the far-famed " mild Hindoo? 



Judging from the numbers of wolf and jackal-like dogs that are 

 from time to time seen, near Indian villages, I imagine that, the 

 tame and wild races, interbreed more readily thau is generally 



