6 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



which far and away excels all others is the island of 

 Ceylon. In some of the districts the enormous 

 quantity of snipe can scarcely be credited by one 

 who has not seen them. I have visited tanks far 

 away in the jungle, when I really believe one's bag 

 would only be limited by the length of the day and 

 the number of one's cartridges. Yet the old residents 

 say the snipe are far less numerous than they used to 

 be, at all events in the accessible districts. In the 

 places I speak of the snipe are safe from slaughter. 

 The wandering sportsman knows he can only use 

 what he himself can eat, as there is probably not 

 another white man within seventy miles, and that 

 much firing will only alarm the big game he has come 

 so far to seek. But the old hands tell of such bags as 

 a hundred couple being made with a muzzle-loader 

 (more probably two with some one to load) within a 

 few miles of the capital, Colombo. It certainly could 

 not be done now, but I have known two guns kill sixty 

 couple in a morning within five-and-twenty miles of 

 that town. Turning to my old diaries, of which I 

 have now, alas, a considerable and ever-increasing 

 heap, I find the record of the best day at the long-bills 

 I ever had. 



A good many years ago I was stationed (for my sins) 

 at the little Fort of Point de Galle, the most southerly 

 town of any size in the island. From a sporting, as 

 well as from every other point of view, it was a 

 miserable station ; at all events, during the summer 

 months. Still, we heard good reports of it as a 

 winter shooting place, and we looked eagerly forward 



