PAKHAL NADDI OF THE PALM TREES 119 



tent-club way of conducting affairs. Most of us had yet 

 to blood our virgin spears, and it was on this our first day 

 " every man for himself and the devil for the hindmost." 

 We were accompanied by a motley rabble of dogs, both 

 small and great hounds and mongrels, terriers and long- 

 legged lurcher-like brutes, which one of our number termed 

 his " greyhounds." All the same, we had no sooner entered 

 a scrubby fallow patch en route to the Pakhal Naddi one 

 early morning than the fun began. 



Aroused by the annoying yap-yapping of a diminutive 

 fox-terrier at his ear, a good boar rose from a grass patch, 

 and made for an adjoining bit of garden cultivation, 

 whereat a hubbub arose that baffles description. Strong 

 men yelled, spears flashed in dangerous proximity to neigh- 

 bours' ribs, bushes crashed, hedges burst asunder, "grey- 

 hounds " were trodden on, ridden over, and wailed vocifer- 

 ously, and the main body of the pursuers, gathering strength 

 as it went, hustled off after the pig ; while, in quite another 

 direction, a somewhat timorous individual, who had been 

 persuaded to accompany us on the ground that it was the 

 right thing to pig-stick, was to be seen, pale as death, 

 balancing precariously on the neck of his country-bred 

 mare, as he was swept away over the yet misty fields into, 

 apparently, the ewigkeit. 



What an uproar there was in that garden patch where the 

 perplexed pig took refuge as the storm of hoofs swept o'er 

 him ! Full of little irrigation drains, tall castor-oil plants, 

 and various other garden products, it was not long ere 

 stirrup-leathers were being torn from saddles and excited 

 sportsmen deposited in more or less damp spots with a 

 celerity that spoke volumes for the efficacy of the entangle- 

 ments. "Where is he? where is he?" gasped a hunter, 

 who was pale with hurry, and at whose belt hung various 

 knives and other lethal weapons. "Where is he?" we 

 bellowed, in English and the vernacular, to the scandalised 

 and horror-stricken tender of the garden land, who stood 



