REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



camping under such circumstances. The bathing day fell 

 early that year, and the first day's racing was consequently 

 fixed for the 2gth October, nice and muggy it must have been, 

 and feverish to boot. Two new owners appeared on the scene 

 to do battle with the owners of the previous year's cracks, 

 and fairly held their own, Messrs. Cunningham, and Fulton, 

 the latter was Mr. George Powden ; Barnes and Sherburne 

 were the only European professionals present at the meeting. 

 Still in spite of the bad going, and goodness only knows what 

 the experience of the martyred visitors tented on the saturated 

 soil must have been, they spun out the meeting to six days, 

 and seemingly managed to have fairly good fields through- 

 out ; but the chronicles go to show that the gathering was 

 confined chiefly to the inferior sex, and that fair women were 

 decidedly in the minority ; whereas now the difficulty is to 

 keep down their numbers. The problem of giving dances 

 without champagne seems to be an acknowledged impossi- 

 bility for secretaries to grasp successfully, and consequently 

 while the racing always shows a surplus, the entertainments 

 scarcely ever cover expenses. Comparatively alongside Sone- 

 pore, was the then favorite health-seeker's resort, Monghyr, 

 where one of the best sportsman India has ever been able 

 to boast of, Mr. Wallace, the Calcutta tailor, had started a 

 breeding stud, and some real clinkers he managed to turn 

 out ; Meg Merrilies and Grace Darling, could give the best 

 Arabs in India weights and beat them, and the straight-going 

 old Snip collared three Viceroy's Cups with Monghyr country- 

 breds, giving battle to English, Cape and Arab horses. Still 

 does the dear old man, whose tall figure was, even when the 

 writer arrived in India in 1862, a well-known landmark on the 

 Calcutta course, live, and up among the banks and braes of 

 Bonnie Doon, he can perhaps remember how he made for me 

 my first set of colors, the black and yellow stripes which I 

 have never forsaken. Moreover he refused to accept payment 



