THE TERM : SPORT OF PRINCES 215 



The party consisted of the Commissioners of Bareilly and 

 Terai, a Brigadier, a Colonel, the Magistrate of the Terai, 

 a man to be trusted to organize a beat under the Chief's 

 instructions, the Forest Surveyor, and a Rajah. The 

 latter, of course, dined in his own tent. The table was 

 brightly lighted by numerous candles, in glass shades to 

 keep off wind and insects ; and lamps swung to the ridge 

 pole. The floor was well carpeted, and the moisture 

 from the ground below was completely excluded. The 

 deadly cold damp chill which comes on at nightfall in the 

 Terai, after the burning heat of the day, was not so marked 

 after April i ; but in the early cold weather it is bad for 

 giving fever. At this season the climate was delightfully 

 cool at night, and the surface so well dried and baked by 

 the sun that little chill was felt, and nothing could be more 

 healthy. This was camping in luxury indeed, and could 

 be carried out in no country better than in India. Every- 

 thing had to be packed up at night and carried on to the 

 next camp, a second lot of tents being sent on and pitched 

 ready for the next day. The organization was excellent, 

 and all done without noise or mistake in regular routine. 



At first dawn of day shikaris were at the door of the 

 Commissioner's tent. Kia khabar hai — ' what news of 

 the night ?' A few shivering gualas in black blankets 

 were crouching by a fire. They had tracked a tiger into a 

 nullah late last night, and another reported a kill of two 

 cows in a certain swampy place. It was yet dark, but 

 for some time the little jungle cocks had been crowing 

 in the dense brushwood all round the camp, their shrill 

 voices ushering in the early day. There is no time so 

 beautiful as the dawn in the Terai. A heavy dew covers 

 all the herbage, and the bushes are whitened with sheets 

 of dew-spangled cobwebs. The air is perfectly stiU, and 

 Nature seems to wake up slowly, as if with difficiilty 



