438 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



can show such a list of large game as we can in India. And 

 for minor sport, what can compare with our endless array of 

 pheasants, partridges, and wildfowl \ 



All this, too, is now so easy of access. Twenty-one days by 

 overland passage lands the traveller in Bombay, where he may 

 step ashore, with nothing more than a carpet-bag if he pleases, 

 and at once fit himself out for a year's tour through the 

 country. If he joins a regular camp in the " plains," he will 

 find the most perfect system of open air life that has any- 

 where been devised. Though an Indian camp may not, as, 

 according to Mark Twain, did that of the Yankee pilgrims in 

 Palestine, contain " a thousand boot-jacks," he will find pretty 

 nearly everything that civilized man can want, ready to move 

 about with him at the rate of from twelve to twenty miles a day. 

 By the help of railways, he may see almost the whole country 

 south of the Himalayas, and shoot specimens of all its game, 

 during the pleasant cold months from October to March ; and 

 by the time that April ushers in the hot blasts of summer, he 

 may find himself, if he pleases, stalking the ibex among the 

 snows of Kashmir. 



For mere sport England need not be left earlier than 

 December ; but should the traveller, as is probable, have other 

 objects in view, he should take an extra month or two to see 

 the lions of the civilized parts at their best, which he may 

 combine with some small game shooting and pig sticking if 

 he likes, in November and December. Should these central 

 regions be selected by the sportsman, the shooting camp should 

 be organized, if possible, beforehand, at some station on the 

 Great Indian Peninsular Kailway, the exact spot depending 

 much on whether the sportsman has any friends on the spot 

 who would assist him. The help of the local civil authorities 

 is of course of the greatest value ; and I may say that it is 



