234 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SHIKAR 



bottom of the saucepan fell out; anyway it was 

 much worse for Jiwan than for me. A Mussulman 

 overseer who lived a mile away heard about the 

 accident and came to help me. He was very good 

 and sent me cooked food for some days, and then 

 sent his own cart, with a thick bed of straw in it, 

 to bring the cook and sepoy when they were fit to 

 travel. The boy and I unpacked the cracked and 

 broken boxes and found that a bottle of chutney 

 and also one of lime-juice had survived the disaster ! 

 But the chutney, I found next day, was a seething 

 mass of drowned or struggling cockroaches that had 

 found their way in through a hole in the cork. 



Poor Jiwan would come the first minute that he 

 was able, he had a miserable drive and had to be 

 lifted out of the cart and laid on a charpai ; I made 

 him some tea and put something to eat near him 

 which he might not touch, because of his caste, but 

 I knew that when I had gone and no one was looking, 

 he would not be able to resist the tea at any rate. 

 He was a wonderful old man and managed to crawl 

 about somehow and would persist in cooking my 

 food however bad he felt. The sepoy was much 

 better and able to walk. 



There was no more sport after this : the Forest 

 Guard, Nanur, who had been a soldier and fought 

 and was wounded at Armentieres, I think he said, 

 was down with the fever; the shikari had a dread- 

 fully swelled face and toothache and could do 

 nothing; several of the village men were ill; and 

 I damaged my foot and could not get about. For 

 several weeks we had a very sad camp, one of the 



