STATION LIFE AND WORK 



waiting on myself and foraging, often unsuccessfully, for a 

 meal. My C.O. or superintendent, a recently promoted 

 major, was one of the nicest men I have met, and, being an 

 Irishman like myself, we got on excellently together. 



Our duties were fairly heavy, as was only natural 

 considering the condition of the country and the fact that 

 both native officers and men, being quite new to their 

 work, had to be continually instructed in the rules and 

 regulations which we had first to learn ourselves and, in 

 my case, had to pass in, for before being confirmed in their 

 appointments, all assistant superintendents were required 

 to pass an examination in law and the language of their 

 district, within two years of being appointed. 



Indeed, so overburdened was I with work that after the 

 first month or two I often found myself regretting my past 

 life despite all its discomforts, for shooting sepoys in the 

 open seemed a preferable occupation even when being 

 shot at in return to confinement in a stuffy office all the 

 day, or in my room at nights with an oleaginous " Munshi," 

 endeavouring to instil into my mind some knowledge of 

 his abominable vernacular. 



But, later on, when his efforts had to some extent 

 succeeded, and I had gained more experience in my duties, 

 my good-natured superior, seeing my dislike to a sedentary 

 life, sent me often out into the district, ostensibly on 

 investigation or inspection duty, which I performed to the 

 best of my ability, though not, I fear, with any extra- 

 ordinary results. 



These inquisitorial excursions were made once or twice 

 a quarter, each occupying about a week, during which 

 period I was continually on the move, sleeping in village 

 huts, or at a police station, and at times even under a 

 tree with my saddle for a pillow two such occasions being, 

 I remember, a Christmas and New Year's Eve of the same 

 year. 



It was in these wanderings round the country that I 

 first acquired a taste for big game shooting that eventually 

 developed into a passion, for tigers and leopards were 

 plentiful in those days, and, being destructive in propor- 

 tion, " khubbur," or information of cattle and some- 

 times human beings killed by them was constantly brought 



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