"GROOMING" FOR BEARS 



SINCE anything savouring of mystery or a cheap 

 method of attracting attention by the meretricious 

 use of strange and bizarre titles is far removed 

 from the intention of the writer, let him make 

 his peace forthwith by declaring that the first word of 

 the above heading is but a very ordinary Hindi word, 

 anglicised, after the manner of the strangely compound 

 verbiage indulged in by us illiterate but practical exiles, 

 into a perhaps more expressive form of speech than is 

 attainable by the use of purer language. 



Having assured the reader, therefore, that ghooming is 

 neither a patent food for captive bears nor yet a form of 

 searching them out or dealing with these interesting planti- 

 grade quadrupeds in a manner from which he need turn 

 coldly, deeming it to be improper, it may possibly be useful 

 for him to learn that to ghoom means to wander round 

 and about to prowl, in fact being derived from the verb 

 ghoomna. My shikari prefers to call it, this process, ghoom- 

 ghdm, after the alliterative or reiterative methods of the 

 Eastern mind ; and I have noticed that he makes especial 

 use of this form of wording whenever the prowling or 

 wandering around partakes of a hopeless and useless 

 nature gloomy in fact. 



I don't think there is anything particularly new about 

 this ghooming for bears, nor is it in any way a patent 

 process. It was suggested to me one night when I had 

 been persuaded to perch on the limb of ^.gular tree and 



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