26 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



tary Martini-Henry 'bll — '450 with a solid bullet; 

 and when I recount that I have known him to re- 

 turn from a single day's shooting out of a tonga 

 (native dog-cart), with which he would certainly not 

 get any chance under one hundred and fifty yards, 

 with three buck (antelope and gazelle) and a great 

 bustard, my sporting readers will understand what 

 a very deadly enemy the buck lost when fever car- 

 ried him oiF. Not only is the performance a proof 

 of good shooting, but even more so of ability to 

 judge distance, — a very difficult matter on the Indian 

 plains. Yet, when the very high trajectory of these 

 rifles and the smallness of the mark are considered, 

 it is obvious that any failure to estimate the dis- 

 tance within a very few yards would ensure a 

 miss. 



To come to our day, however. It was about the 



very hottest of the hot weather, when H , above 



referred to, and I agreed to make an expedition in 

 quest of buck to a district, concerning which his 

 shikari had made a good report, some fifteen miles 

 away. There is little hardship at rising at four in 

 the morning in such weather, for it is only at that 

 hour that the heat is at all endurable, so I was 



quite ready when H rattled up in a hired tonga. 



My quota of ice, soda-water, and lunch was put in, 

 and we were off. Through the silent rows of bun- 

 galows we rattled, and then through the < equally 

 silent bazaar, and for the next hour and more 

 nodded and dozed on our uncomfortable seats, while 

 • the conveyance followed one of the splendid roads 

 with which British India is so plentifully provided. 

 At last a succession of bumps and jolts told us we 

 had entered upon a country track, and this we fol- 



