414 REMINISCENCES OF 



excellent coverts. The climate is magnificent all 

 the year round, the glass rarely reaching freezing- 

 point on the coldest nights, and the hottest weather 

 never exceeding the heat of an Italian summer. 



" Such an addition of country was an enormous 

 benefit to the Madras Hunt in all respects, but it 

 was also the cause of the institution obtaining at 

 one time a world-wide reputation, and the notice of 

 all the sporting journals of England and America, 

 for here it was that occurred an incident quite without 

 parallel in the records of sport. On 22nd June, 1869, 

 the hounds had had a fair run, and killed their jackal 

 (which animal in India does duty for a fox), but had 

 given the whole of the field the slip except two 

 gentlemen who were doing what they could to get 

 them towards home. Suddenly a full-grown leopard 

 dashed out of a thicket and crossed the path, which 

 was too much for the uncontrolled pack, for in a 

 moment the whole thirteen couple were after him 

 at score. They hunted him for some little distance 

 and eventually turned him over, in the open, on a 

 grassy hillside, in full view of the two gentlemen in 

 question. Every hound was at him on the ground, 

 and would undoubtedly have then and there made 

 an end of him, had it not been for the extraordinary 

 toughness of his hide, which they could not quite get 

 through, so that he was at last enabled to regain his 

 legs and shake off the pack, and, after a further 

 exciting chase, to take refuge under a rock on the 

 edge of a stream running through a small copse of 

 brushwood. Here the hounds regularly bayed the 



