JUVENILE WILD SPORTS. 3 



begun to work. Hence it follows that however much a man 

 may refrain from egotism in the narration of Himalayan sport, 

 he must either keep his experiences to himself, or describe 

 the performances of that objectionable Ego. A sportsman in 

 the mountains is wonderfully fortunate if he can so arrange 

 his beats as to bivouac at night on neutral ground with a 

 chum, with whom he may discuss a pipe at the camp-fire after 

 dinner, compare notes of the day's doings, and separate again 

 in the morning, " each to gang his ain gait " ; but to attempt 

 to work in couples is ruination to sport, and only vexation of 

 spirit. Nor need one ever feel lonely amidst the grand and 

 the beautiful. Fair Nature is always charming companion- 

 ship, and 



" Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild, 

 Where nothing polished dares pollute her path." 



Long ere I was old enough to handle a gun, an innate love 

 of the pursuit of the ferce natures found vent in trapping birds 

 by the numerous means devised in the youthful mind, and in 

 rambling in quest of their eggs ; rat-hunting at the dismant- 

 ling of a corn-stack, the wild excitement of which, I then 

 thought, nothing could surpass ; and suchlike ways of indulg- 

 ing juvenile sporting instincts. I doubt whether the keen 

 delight felt on killing my first game-bird a woodcock has 

 in all my shooting experiences been equalled. To my good 

 fortune in having been a Goorkha, so to speak, during the 

 whole of my service in India, is due the fact of my having 

 had such opportunities of fostering this taste for wandering 

 and wild sport as seldom fall to the lot of the sojourner in 

 the far East. For the Goorkha battalions are generally 

 quartered either in or near the Himalayas ; and the Nepalese 

 mountaineers, of whom they are composed, are second to no 

 other shikarees, not to say soldiers, in the world. 



The first three years of my service were passed at Peshawur, 

 which, though an excellent school for a soldier lad, from the 

 practical lessons taught in the frequent expeditions that took 



