CHAPTER XX 



I HAD selected the hills of Travancore, in the Presidency of 

 Madras, as the most suitable spot wherein to spend my 

 leave firstly, because I had a planter friend there with 

 whom I could chum ; the second reason was that never 

 having been in that part of India before, it would be a 

 more complete change for me ; the last, though not the 

 least important reason, being that I had heard there was 

 good bison and ibex shooting to be had there. 



My friend was not a sportsman himself, but this fact, 

 so far from being a drawback, was considerably in my 

 favour from the sporting point of view, as the game in 

 his immediate neighbourhood, not having been disturbed 

 for some years, was consequently less shy and easier to 

 approach. Moreover, though not a sportsman in the sense 

 of actually shooting himself, he knew all the best shikaris 

 and the varieties of animals to be found in the district. 



Amongst the latter he included, much to my surprise, 

 the ordinary Bengal tiger, a beast I had hitherto imagined 

 was to be found only in the plains. He admitted they 

 were rare, and difficult to get at owing to the nature of the 

 country, but added that on several occasions cattle 

 belonging to the estate had been killed by them, and that 

 one had recently been shot by a " shikari." 



From the moment I learnt of the existence of these 

 beasts, bison, ibex, and sambhur ceased to have any 

 interest for me, for unlike some, probably most, Anglo- 

 Indian sportsmen, tiger, leopard, and bear in the order 

 named were the only animals that I really cared to hunt, 

 or which afforded me any genuine satisfaction to kill ; 

 possibly because of the greater excitement derived from 

 their pursuit. 



However, be this as it may, I had not been many days 

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