IN THE SAL FORESTS. 



ft The best laid schemes o'mice and men 



Gang- aft a-gley. 

 And lea'e us nought but grief and pain 



For promised joy. " 



So said the ploughman-bard a hundred and more years 

 ago ; and, with a trifling modification, so thought we on 

 'our return from a distant shooting-ground of India not 

 long since. Tired and weary of the worries and drawbacks 

 connected with sporting expeditions undertaken in the 

 more accessible districts, attracted by the novelty of 

 exploration, and fired by the entries in the diaries of one 

 who had travelled, shot, and administered the country 

 some forty years before, I persuaded a kindred spirit to 

 join me in that enterprise. 



It cannot be denied that we had certain warnings ; 

 but what of them ! For the last eight years and more had 

 I not gloated over the old diaries, pored over the well- 

 known maps, dreamt of the sportsman's paradise at last to 

 be realized ? And at length was not the auspicious time 

 come ? 



"Shot out! 5) Was it? we knew something worth two of 

 that. Those diaries! Even remote pastures change in 

 thirty-five years, but the change could not be so great 

 after all. I would be well content with one quarter as 

 much sport as that recorded in the neat old-fashioned hand- 

 writing within those musty covers. 



And so the grand expedition started. The middle of the 

 month of March saw a little wisp of dust crossing the blaz- 

 ing and parched face of the country, some hundred and 

 eighty miles by rail and dak from our starting point. As 



