BULLET AND SHOT 



Chinniah to where I had left D. and the tiffin 

 bag, to bring me some whiskey and water ; and 

 then, much refreshed, I rejoined D., who had 

 been marvelling at my long absence, and won- 

 dering what he had better do, should it prove 

 that I had come to grief and been smashed by 

 a fall down a precipice. 



The horns of my buck measured 14^ inches, 

 and though one of them had been somewhat 

 broken in the course of his various involuntary 

 somersaults, it was satisfactorily mended by the 

 taxidermist who set up the head. The ibex 

 had received the first successful bullet in his hind 

 leg, which it had broken at the hock-joint ; and 

 so great was the distance, that the ordinary hollow 

 Eley's express bullet extracted therefrom had not 

 broken up at all, and was only slightly flattened 

 at the head where the copper tube had been driven 

 into the body of the bullet. The charge of powder 

 used was 4f drachms. 



We had a long tramp to the Avalanche bun- 

 galow, and it was not until some time after 

 darkness had set in that we arrived there. On 

 the next day we returned to Ooctacamund, and 

 thence to our duty in the plains below, looking 

 forward to the time when we might once again 

 hope to enjoy the fine sport of ibex shooting on 

 the lovely, cool heights to which, for the present, 

 we were compelled to bid adieu and au revoir. 



The hot weather of 1888 found me once more 

 upon the Neilgherry hills, bent upon a shooting 



282 



