248 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



locked, and, in endeavouring to extricate themselves, 

 they approached the edge of the tableland and, before 

 I could raise my gun to fire, toppled over. We 

 rushed to the edge and there, 120 feet below us, 

 jammed between the mango tree and the edge of the 

 precipice, lay these two warriors dead ! The hinds 

 went off about a hundred yards when they saw us, 

 then turned round and stared at us, but we did not 

 molest them. There was no means of descending to 

 where the stags were lying, so I went back to camp, 

 where I arrived about dark, and sent a party out with 

 torches to bring in the trophies. They even could 

 not disunite the two heads, so cut them off and 

 transported them home as they were. I should 

 have liked to have sent them to a taxidermist, but as 

 none was within three thousand miles, I skinned the 

 heads and retained the skulls with the horns interlaced. 

 Then, foolishly, I sent them with other trophies 

 Collected during fifteen years to a friend, but he 

 became insane. Thinking that my treasures were all 

 hung in his hall in Suffolk, I did not move in the 

 matter for some time ; but on visiting his home I saw 

 only a few specimens, so after inquiries I discovered 

 that, after lying in the Customs warehouses for years 

 in Liverpool, the collection I had been at the trouble 

 and expense of securing, had been sold by auction to 

 defray expenses. Who got them or what became of 

 them, I could never find out. 



In 1863, when on " leave" to the Neilgherry Hills, 

 I made the acquaintance of the late General Douglas 

 Hamilton, and he very kindly placed his hut and his 

 shikarie at my disposal. His bungalow at Ooty was 

 a curiosity, the walls were covered with innumerable 



