REMINISCENCES OF JUNGLYPUR 219 



approach, when at last one lies behind the sheltering bush 

 or mound of earth, one's efforts are surely amply repaid 

 by a close survey of the interestingly unconscious game, 

 especially when aided by a binocular glass. The amusing 

 antics of the young fawns, the ever-suspicious and wakeful 

 mien of a sentinel doe, or the dignified behaviour of the 

 glossy black master of the herd, whom one may even now 

 spare unless the attractions of an unusually fine pair of 

 horns should overcome other promptings, all form a 

 picture of engrossing interest to the man whose soul is 

 not too lofty to descend to such comparative trifles. 



A clear, sharp morning in the cold-weather season, as 

 the dogcart bowls merrily along the hard white road, 

 passing a country cart or two that their muffled-up drivers 

 turn aside with jingling of bells ; swathes of white mist 

 lying along the yellow stubble and the fresh green of the 

 rabi crops, and mingling with the smoke of the early fires 

 that rises from the village by the ford ; a jackal slinking 

 off across the fallow; the whirr of a startled partridge 

 from the roadside ; the red orb of the sun rising through 

 the mists of dawn to his inexorable work of the day ; the 

 halt by the roadside, where we meet the bullock cart, to 

 transfer the lunch-basket; the start across the level, far- 

 stretching antelope plains ; and then, the morning's sport 

 adjourned, the shade of yonder thick wide-branching old 

 mango tree, lunch, a bottle of nectar-like beer, and a quiet 

 smoke. Does not that recall many a pleasant day in this 

 much-maligned land ? 



Besides buck, the plains yielded us chinkdra and nilgae, 

 that is to say, in the neighbourhood of the lower foot- 

 hills ; and the latter being in those regions a very different 

 animal to the typically confidential blue-bull, capital stalk- 

 ing they afforded as they wended their way into the low 

 hills in the grey of the morning after a night spent among 

 the crops of the open country. The beef-loving Maho- 

 medan of the native city and bazaars had long since driven 



