BUCK-SHOOTING IN CENTRAL INDIA. 313 



the day I am going to endeavour to give an account 

 of, never used any other weapon but a military 

 Martini-Henry "577 "450 with a solid bullet, and when 

 I recount that I have known him return from a single 

 day's shooting out of a tonga (native dogcart), with 

 which he would certainly not get any chance under 

 one hundred and fifty yards, with three buck (antelope 

 and gazelle) and a great bustard, my sporting readers 

 will understand what a very deadly enemy the buck 

 lost when fever carried him off only a year or two ago. 

 Not only is the performance a proof of good shooting, 

 but even more so of ability to judge distance, a very 

 difficult matter on the Indian plains. Yet when the 

 very high trajectory of these rifles and the smallness 

 of the mark are considered, it is obvious that any 

 failure to estimate the distance within a very few yards 

 would ensure a miss. 



To come to our day, however. It was about the 



very hottest of the hot weather, when H , above 



referred to, and I agreed to make an expedition in 

 quest of buck, to a district, concerning which his 

 shikari had made a good report, some fifteen miles 

 away. There is little hardship at rising at four in the 

 morning in such weather, for it is only at that hour 

 that the heat is at all endurable, so I was quite ready 



when H rattled up in a hired tonga. My quota 



of ice, soda-water, and lunch was put in, and we were 

 off. Through the silent rows of bungalows we rattled, 

 and then through the equally silent bazaar, and for the 

 next hour and more nodded and dozed on our uncom- 

 fortable seats, while the conveyance followed one of 



