BLUE-BULL SHOOTING 45 



other. As we went I slipped a ball cartridge into 

 each barrel of my gun, preferring that weapon to the 

 single '450 in the carriage. 



A couple of minutes after we had taken post a 

 herd of five nilghai broke from the covert, and passed 

 us at a distance of some seventy yards, going at a 

 lumbering trot. 



Picking out the biggest one, I fired, and heard the 

 spherical bullet tell loudly. Blood showed at once, 

 but a little high and far back. My second barrel 



missed, as did P 's only shot, and the herd dis- 



appeared round a corner of the rocky hill. Reload- 

 ing, I started to follow them up, but almost at once 

 our driver in the road below shouted : " He's down ! 

 He's down ! " I hurried on to give the coup-de-grdce, 

 but it was unnecessary, for twenty yards further on 

 lay my first blue bull, stone-dead. The next job was 

 to get him down to the road, nearly a hundred feet 

 below. After gralloching him, I cut off the head, 

 which with some nine inches of neck was as much 



as ever P and I could carry down between us. 



With the assistance of some passing natives the 

 shikari rolled the carcase down the steep hill, and 

 with great difficulty we managed to raise it suffi- 

 ciently to secure it to the hind axle and springs. 

 These proceedings took us a good deal more than 

 an hour, and it was nearly nine o'clock before we 

 reached our station. 



Nylghai have one great advantage over every kind 

 of Indian deer and antelope with which I am ac- 

 quainted, in that their meat is excellent eating. 

 Indeed, I know very few things much better than 

 a well-corned round of blue - bull beef. Sambar is 



