218 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



it is in April and May, when the heat, as Major Le 

 Geyt described it to me, is something tremendous, 

 and yet is neither oppressive nor unhealthy. It was 

 in that season that Sir Seymour Fitzgerald made 

 his excursion into it, when he was Governor of Bom- 

 bay, and bagged several lions ; and he is almost the 

 only Englishman I have heard of as having visited 

 the Gir, except two or three of the civil and military 

 officers employed in Kathiawar. Here is a fine play- 

 ground for the sportsmen of Europe ; but it would be 

 vain for them to attempt to hunt in it without the 

 cordial assistance of the Jiinaghar Durbar. 



Tents would be required in this wild district : there 

 are many half-open dells in which small ones might 

 be pitched under great teak -trees, ebony -trees, or 

 wide- spreading peepul and barr ; and there are even 

 large amphitheatres surrounded by the wooded hills. 

 Around all the yellow, withered vegetation, and in the 

 burning sky above, there quivers a furnace-like air ; 

 but on the banks of the poisonous though limpid 

 streamlets, and climbing up every rock and precipice 

 where moisture remains and dews fall, there blooms 

 the gaudy luxuriance of tropical vegetation. Among 

 these wild rocks and thick glens there is the very 

 savagery of nature, both in vegetable and animal life. 

 The great maneless lion of Giizerat abounds, and comes 

 down in the moonlight nights to the pools to drink, or 

 to watch for the beautiful antelope and the splendid 

 sambar. Large serpents twine, scarce distinguishable, 



