A TOUGH CUSTOMER. 19 



being c on duty ' the next day, but the third of 

 the party (Captain Thompson, Royal Horse 

 Artillery) and myself determined to remain, and 

 have another beat, and try to atone for our 

 hitherto worse than bad luck. 



The morning of the 12th broke fine, and pro- 

 mised well for sport. Every blade of grass and 

 bush sparkled with raindrops that flashed and 

 glittered in the sunlight, and there was that 

 pleasant smell of damp earth so grateful to those 

 who have frizzled and sweltered through a ' hot 

 weather.' After breakfast we sallied out to beat 

 a large conical hill called 'Warree,' that stood 

 isolated in the midst of a wide ' maidan,' or plain. 

 The hill itself was composed principally of boul- 

 ders of rocks, interspersed amongst a mass of 

 loose, rolling stones, and was clothed from base 

 to summit with dense brushwood, some three to 

 four feet high. The top was a table-land covered 

 with coarse rumnah grass about a foot high, now 

 waving green after the refreshing rains of the 

 monsoon, To the south, east, and west the plain 

 extended as far as the eye could reach in one 

 level streak of black cotton soil, only broken here 

 and there by some small rocky hillock with an 

 occasional ravine or ' nullah,' whilst to the north 

 and some two miles distant lay a long ridge of 

 low hills covered with thick scrub jungle, and 



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