THE OOTACAMUND HOUNDS. 159 



of indifference to them, to local readers it will, I trust, only 

 open to their friendly recognition what a nom de plume would 

 not have availed to hide. 



No undertaking in India is ever carried on except at the 

 hands of a committee, who meet with great solemnity and cum- 

 bersomeness, and record and treasure very carefully all the 

 profound utterances and dignified resolutions given birth to at 

 these meetings — usually leaving to their honorary secretary all 

 the trouble and responsibility connected with ways and means, 

 which one would imagine to be the chief function for which 

 they were called into existence. So of course there was an 

 Ootacamund Hunt Committee. But the two working represen- 

 tatives — and the two men to whom the Ooty Hunt really owes 

 its life and being — were Major Robert Devonshire and Mr. 

 Schmidt. The former knows a good deal more about the 

 business than is given to most amateurs, having been brought 

 up under the guidance and tutoring of Squire Trelawny, and 

 inheriting from him the keenness of a Scotch terrier. He 

 would long ago, and with thorough fittedness, have assumed the 

 joint offices of Master and huntsman himself, had not the 

 Forest Department, in whose pay his lot is cast, considered that 

 the care of their young plantations demands a man with a less 

 engrossing source of recreation than the charge of a pack of 

 hounds. So now he contents himself with remaining the prac- 

 tical backbone of the Hunt ; has locked up his red coat to 

 please his employers, but still lends full and vigorous assistance 

 in all matters pertaining to the flags or the field. Mr. Schmidt's 

 knowledge of the chase has been the offspring of local experi- 

 ence ; but, while each succeeding season has added something 

 to the store, it has diminished in no degree his ingrafted love 

 for the subject. 



So one morning, early in April, there issued mounted from 

 the kennels at break of clay the huntsman, the two gentlemen 

 above, with two " dog boys " on foot, the first-named accoutred 

 with his horn, and the others with whips of office — all with a 

 view to taking the newly -formed pack for exercise. But where 



