1 90 Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



In such a position he forms a point on which the attention 

 of his native subordinates is focussed, and is the centre (some- 

 times unconsciously) of a keen struggle for advancement 

 of an official, commercial, or private nature* There is a 

 continual effort to enlist his sympathies, to gain his ear, 

 to obtain by his fancied favours some apparently trivial 

 advantage ; and it may be imagined therefrom that few 

 points of his character escape notice. What, then, more 

 natural than that those who are able should lose no oppor- 

 tunity of ministering to his taste for sport, should he possess 

 such, nor hesitate to employ any means that they imagine 

 may aid them to gain his favour by so doing. 



From this it is not difficult to infer the effect on the sport 

 of the ' outsider ' should the Deputy Commissioner show 

 the least tendency to look askance at men making shooting 

 excursions into his domain ; nor indeed the crushing results 

 of an active dog-in-the-manger policy (happily rare) when 

 he actually sets impeding machinery in motion. 



Afc the same time those who theorize to the effect that 

 district officials have no more right to the game than 

 have men from a distance, are apt to forget the workings of 

 human nature. It is not unnatural for these officials to 

 imagine that they have a kind of prior claim. And if, as 

 is done in some districts, an area of reasonable size be set 

 apart for their sport, few of us would complain. Unfortun- 

 ately it seems easier to some natures to grant the 

 * outsider ' permission to enter their imaginary preserves, 

 and then assume an attitude which is only too easily read 

 by obsequious native underlings. 



To what lengths such practices have been known to 

 proceed may be seen in the case of a certain jealous official, 

 who was in the habit of issuing two differently coloured 

 forms of permit-de-chasse* A pink card appropriately 



