CHAPTER IX. 



A MIXED BAG IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 



WHEN I was a youngster and in the fifties, 

 stationed with my regiment at Secunderabad there 

 was excellent sport to be obtained within an easy 

 distance of the station, but since privates have been 

 encouraged, and in my opinion very properly so, to 

 indulge in shooting, small game has nearly dis- 

 appeared, so to get anything like a bag one has to go 

 a long distance. But by crossing the Moosa excellent 

 sport could be had in the rumnah, a large tract 

 very carefully preserved for antelope hunting with 

 trained chitas, by the Nizam and his sirdars. I learnt 

 that no soldiers were allowed to pass the river, and that 

 it was very difficult for an officer even to get permission 

 to shoot there ; but meeting his Excellency Sir Salar 

 Jung at a party given in his honour at the Public 

 Assembly Rooms, just before Christmas, I was intro- 

 duced to him by the General Commanding the 

 Subsidiary Force, and as he was good enough to say 

 that my name was familiar to him as a successful 

 sportsman and great traveller, and that he would be 

 pleased to take me out later on tiger shooting, which 



