Introduction 



and show their spoil. A patient bullock-cart then 

 moves up as if time was no object, and did not 

 exist but this is the way of the East, and we all 

 have to fall into line with it ! I, for instance, am 

 philosophically waiting a train which has never 

 yet been known to come in within five hours of 

 the advertised time, so the inspector tells me with 

 a leer. The servants and orderlies are for once in 

 a hurry, however. They want to get home now 

 they are so near. The heterogeneous mass of 

 objects is piled into the gharry amidst execrations 

 on the part of each individual assister in the per- 

 formance, and at the end of ten minutes' pande- 

 monium off goes the rest of the "kit"; to the 

 accompaniment of a dull rattle as the kerosine-tins 

 bump against the near wheel as it crawls slowly 

 round, whilst the end of a tent pole grinding 

 against the off one emits a direful shriek. The 

 kit is off. 



We can imagine the sniff of contempt of our 

 immaculate home sportsmen ! And yet the ex- 

 perienced know that with that kit and by means 

 of it those youngsters have had far finer sport than 

 money could purchase in the Old Country, whilst 

 that brawny servant with a couple of stones and a 

 hole in the ground will and often in the past has 

 turned out a dinner which, to a hungry sports- 

 man, be he prince or subaltern, is all that can be 

 desired. 



The London cabby too. He is a facetious man. 



xix 



