XYiii INTRODUCTION, 



vacation, we shot, and tyed. But the partnership 

 proving unsatisfactory, it was soon dissolved by 

 mutual consent, and I found myself sole and un- 

 disputed Master of the Ordnance. From this 

 eventful and dignified epoch in my life, I date my 

 rapid improvement in the noble science of pro- 

 jectiles. 



After this sketch of my puerile biography, it is 

 scarcely necessary to inform the reader that I was 

 considered by my partial friends to be fitting food 

 for shot and powder. Accordingly I was entered 

 at the Military College, where my worth}^ superiors 

 having pronounced me competent for a commission 

 in the Engineers, I found myself at the early age 

 of sixteen, an officer of that distinguished Corps in 

 Western India ; one of the not least valued of my 

 distinctions being the possession of a rifle, before 

 the deadly grooves of which a kite had but little 

 chance at one hundred and fifty yards. Armed 

 with this weapon, I had ample opportunities of in- 

 dulging in my favourite pursuits, and may safely 

 aflfirm, that during many years I enjoyed ball- 

 practice in perfection. 



But whilst silently stealing on the recent tracks 

 of the " antlered monarch of the waste," or perse- 

 veringly stalking a stately buck — whilst urging my 

 elephant to his utmost speed in pursuit of a retreat- 

 ing tiger, or contemplating with delight the grizzly 



