FOX-HOUND, FOKEST, AND 

 PKAIBIE. 



MY EARLIEST SHIKAR.* 



A TWO MONTHS' LEAVE IN THE MALAY 

 PENINSULA. 



Singapore, August 27. Capt. C. (a brother officer of the 9th) 

 and I with two months' leave, have come down here to try for 

 some shooting in the Malay Peninsula. We had a passage 

 given us in one of Messrs. Jardine's steamers, or could not 

 well have managed it. Leaving Hong Kong on the 17th, we 

 reached Singapore on the 25th. An eight days' voyage seems 

 rather a long one to undertake for the sake of shooting, but 

 it is not so much for the shooting only, as to get away from 

 Hong Kong for a time. We are going up country with Tuanko 

 Solong, a Malay chief, and I believe, a great sportsman in his 

 way, and who happens to be just about to return to his own 

 country for the elephant shooting. I must tell you the 

 elephants come down from the hills at this time of the year, 

 to feed on the corn and fruits in the plains, and there is more 

 chance of bagging them now than at any other time. We 

 have been obliged to spend a few days here to get things in 

 readiness, buy provisions, &c., for our trip, in case game should 

 be scarce. 



* I prefer to offer the following as jotted day by day into a pocket-diary, and 

 thence copied as a private letter to England, rather than at this lapse of time to 

 clothe the bare outline with further details or in more complete language. 



