2 yo WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



permitted to say that I was the first European who laid him- 

 self out to tap in earnest the big-game tracts of this glorious 

 district. I would therefore ask the would-be sportsman to 

 leave the steamer here and accompany me into the wilds. It 

 was thought at one time that no big-game shooting worth 

 having was to be obtained in Upper Burma, and that to get 

 at what there was necessitated a great expenditure of time, 

 money, and labour. Such is certainly far from being the case, 

 and the men who first 'circulated this announcement were, I 

 presume, invariably those who had had no practical experi- 

 ence of this particular kind of sport, and who were unacquainted 

 with the language of the people, their customs, and habits, a 

 knowledge of which is an indispensable factor in securing 

 successful sport. Some of the best big-game shooting in the 

 world, with the least possible trouble and expenditure so far 

 as transport, food supplies, comfort, guides, and trackers are 

 concerned, may be had in Upper Burma, if the sportsman 

 will only go about it in the right way. Inland, a few miles 

 from Tagaung, a subdivision of the Ruby Mines district, 

 situated on the left bank of the river a little more than a 

 day's journey by mail steamer from Mandalay, a distance of 

 some seventy-seven miles, and only about forty-five miles 

 above Thabeitkyin, some of the finest big-game shooting in 

 Upper Burma may be had. Some eighteen months of my 

 service were spent in this subdivision, and I was, I may say, 

 the first police-officer none of my predecessors apparently 

 being sportsmen to indent on the vast herds of gaur, ele- 

 phant, wild cattle, and other animals which roamed about the 

 jungle and hills to within, I might almost say, a mile or so of 

 my very doors. I have often on a bright moonlight night, 

 when all was still and silent, save perhaps the occasional 

 splash, splash of a paddy-boat's oars, the faint wailing of a 

 child, or the yelp of a pariah pup from the village, heard, 

 while seated in my verandah in a long arm-chair, and under 

 the soothing influence of a cigar, the dull rumblings and 

 mutterings of elephants as they wandered about only a few 

 hundred yards off, amongst the tall dense " kaing " or ele- 

 phant grass which skirts the river's banks often for miles along 

 its course. The verandah of my house commanded a lovely 



