334 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



offer I gratefully accepted, I was also emboldened to 

 ask if he would give me a purwannah for some 

 sporting in the rumnah. He promised to send me 

 one, and he did. I was no longer in the service, but 

 was endeavouring to secure men for a Company in 

 Africa, and as soon as I could get away I sent on a 

 syce and a dozen beaters to the ford, 1 where travellers 

 for Masulipatam via Narkapilly usually crossed, and 

 starting myself on the 5th January, and got there at 

 5.30 A.M. As I entered the preserve I was at 

 once accosted by a keeper, who asked to see my permit. 

 The minister's seal was quite sufficient, the man 

 salaamed and allowed us to go on. The aspect of the 

 country was not much changed, though it was more 

 than thirty years since I had been there. To the 

 north-east there used to be several "bheels," noted 

 places for duck, teal and snipe. I asked the head beater 

 if they still existed, and he replied, " Ho, sahib, bahoot 

 shikar hi, koe ne marta (Yes, sir, there is plenty of 

 game as no one shoots there)." About a mile from 

 the river's bank, as the country looked favourable, I 

 formed line, and with six men on either side of me 

 commenced to beat. I was armed with a light 

 breechloader, No. 16 bore, 2 and I found that when 

 loaded with 2f drams of Schultze and one ounce of No. 

 6 or 8 shot, it would perform splendidly up to fifty 

 yards, and if held with judgment, it occasionally 

 killed much further. A better and a handier weapon 

 I never possessed. We had barely gone fifty yards 

 through coarse grass, a couple of feet high, some- 

 times more than that, with small bushes scattered 

 here and there, when up got a bevy of quail. I 

 1 Oopal. 2 Made by Westley Richards. 



