ii8 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



racehorses no heavy tent-club mess bills. But we got our 



pig! 



As the rider canters over the level cultivated plains four 



miles due west of Junglypur, there rises to meet him, over 

 long stretches of cotton and millet, a line of nodding, 

 slender-necked date-palms, their drooping plumes hanging 

 above the tangled coverts of a little stream known as the 

 "Pakhal Naddi." 



The name of this beautiful piece of pig-covert is perhaps 

 derived from the word pakhdl, meaning a bhistts waterbag ; 

 and a happy simile it is, for the stream watering it may 

 aptly be likened to a never-failing massak. Throughout 

 the driest hot-weather season its springs well forth in the 

 midst of a parched and dusty plain, and break away in a 

 deep cool stream, meandering over a muddy bed from pool 

 to pool, the still, dark depths of which reflect the graceful 

 overhanging forms of shady boughs. 



This covert is extremely thick, and of the kind known 

 so well to Deccan hog-hunters as a sendhibund> where the 

 undergrowth is largely composed of dwarf date bushes, 

 intermingled with lantdna and kartinda, and where impene- 

 trable masses of dense green creepers, encouraged by the 

 moisture-soaked soil, swarm tumultuously up the highest 

 palms, flinging thick canopies of verdure over their drooping 

 plumes, and smothering the underwood in an all-pervading 

 embrace. Hard by, irrigated by little channels led off the 

 main stream, are several betel-nut, sugar-cane, and other 

 gardens, affording a cover scarcely less secure than the 

 palm ndla itself; the whole, in sooth, forming a retreat 

 calculated to lull the most suspiciously inclined poker 

 with soft dreams of high feeding and undisturbed peace. 



We first essayed our luck with the denizens of the Pakhal 

 Naddi not long after our first arrival at Junglypur now 

 many years ago and since few of us had ever before 

 been able to indulge in the glorious sport, our methods 

 would have horrified anyone accustomed to an orderly 



