86 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



mentioned. They owned I looked very ill. " Where 

 did I want to go?" " Oh," said I, "as sick 

 leave on account of fever is not allowed to 

 Ootacamund, I want to go to Coimbatore." " What 

 for ? " asked the senior member of the board. " Oh, 

 to shoot elephants," I incautiously replied. The board 

 sent in its report and a recommendation that I should 

 have three months' leave for a voyage and not a 

 year's absence to the Western Coast. This was done 

 to spite not me, but my medical attendant. R. 

 protested, and when the board was asked their reason 

 for curtailing the leave recommended by the man 

 who had nursed me through a dangerous illness, and 

 who knew more of the ins and outs of the case than 

 they could possibly do after a five minutes' examina- 

 tion, replied that " I had stated as my sole reason for 

 wishing to be invalided, was with a view to shoot 

 elephants, and they thought it advisable in my then 

 state, that I should not be permitted to do so." 

 Well, a year or two afterwards our then Commander- 

 in-Chief asked very kindly if he could assist me in 

 any way. I still had elephants on the brain, and 

 begged his Excellency to appoint me to the Sappers 

 and Miners, whose headquarters were permanently at 

 Mercara, a famous locality for elephants. I was duly 

 gazetted, but the whole of the Sappers were on service 

 in Burma, however they were not expected to remain 

 there for more than a year or two, when they would 

 return to Coorg. Anxious to see service and to visit 

 a new country, I hurried over as fast as I could. 

 When with a field force commanded by Colonel Cotton, 

 C.B., who so greatly distinguished himself afterwards 

 during the Mutiny, it was found that I had a fair 



