Pakhal Naddi of the Palm Trees. 43 



We first essayed our luck with the denizens of the Pakhal 

 Naddi not long after our first arrival at Junglypur now 

 many years ago and since few of us had ever before 

 been able to indulge in the glorious sport, our methods 

 would have horrified anyone accustomed to an orderly 

 tent-club way of conducting affairs ! Most of us had yet 

 to blood our virgin spears, and it was on this our first day 

 " every man for himself and the devil for the hindmost." 

 We were accompanied by a motley rabble of dogs, both 

 small and great hounds and mongrels, terriers and long- 

 legged lurcher-like brutes, which one of our number termed 

 his " greyhounds. " All the same we had no sooner enter- 

 ed a scrubby fallow patch en route to the Pakhal Naddi, one 

 early morning, than the fun began. 



Aroused by the annoying yap-yapping of a diminutive 

 fox. -terrier at his ear, a good boar rose from a grass patch, 

 and made for an adjoining bit of garden cultivation; where- 

 at a hubbub arose that baffles description. Strong men 

 yelled, spears flashed in dangerous proximity to neighbours' 

 ribs, bushes crashed, hedges burst asunder, greyhounds 

 were trodden on, ridden over, and wailed vociferously, and 

 the main body of the pursuers, gathering strength as it 

 went, hustled off after the pig; while, in quite another 

 direction, a somewhat timorous individual, who had been 

 persuaded to accompany us on the ground that it was the 

 right thing to pig-stick, was to be seen, pale as death, 

 balancing precariously on the neck of his country-bred 

 mare, as he was swept away over the yet misty fields into, 

 apparently, the " ewigkeit." 



What an uproa.r there was in that garden patch where the 



perplexed pig took refuge as the storm of hoofs swept o'er 



him ! Full of little irrigation drains, tall castor-oil plants, 



' and various other garden products, it was not long ere 



