ISO RIDING, DRIVING AND KINDRED SPORTS 



and 'their duties so many and various that those 

 who have the taste have not always the oppor- 

 tunity. I fancy, too, that the powers that be in 

 India do not, to say the least of it, encourage 

 sporting tastes among young civilians. To this, 

 perhaps, may be attributed the fact which is 

 most undoubted, that of sympathy and inter- 

 course between natives and Europeans there is 

 less, and not more, than there used to be. The 

 native gentleman of the upper class is often a 

 born sportsman, and shows his best side to those 

 who will share his amusements. At all events 

 I have always found that the natives of India 

 of all classes are generally willing to help the 

 sportsman. More particularly is this the case 

 with the hog-hunter, who rids their crops of one 

 of the most destructive animals in the country, 

 and in the course of doing so leaves enough 

 rupees behind him to compensate for the damage 

 he has done. In one case in particular I 

 remember that when the peasants of a neigh- 

 bourhood had had some months' experience of 

 a well-managed tent club, the pigs increased 

 considerably, being evidently preserved in hopes 

 of bringing the open-handed sahibs to hunt the 

 neighbourhood. 



Now the first thino- to be done in considerino^ 

 the pursuit of an animal is to learn something 

 of its habits and ways. In writing of the wild 



