THE MEERUT TENT CLUB 115 



some favourite jheel of his where you spend a 

 pleasant hour or so with flighting duck and snipe. 



Then back to a tub, the cheery mess tent, and 

 a warm fire, where with ginger wine and whisky, 

 and the fragrant mongpulli nut, you fill the aching 

 void till dinner. And so to bed. 



And now, for one last day, my last in the Kadir. 



This was in June last season, at Sherpur. The 

 whole hot season had been a rainy one, and it was 

 evident the monsoon was now on us. The sky was 

 overcast with great black clouds, and it was more 

 than doubtful if we would get a hunt before the rain 

 came. However, four of us went out by train. Our 

 fifth was N, the political, who was coming out along 

 a country road by bicycle, and then by ferry across 

 the Ganges, and so to camp. Having bicycled 

 from England down the Euphrates to the Persian 

 Gulf, no ordinary track had any terrors for 

 him. 



We reached camp just in time to get all snug 

 before the rain fell very heavily for many hours, 

 lasting in fact until about 9 a.m. next morning. 

 N had not arrived in the evening, but to our joy 

 he turned up wet, dirty, and hungry, in time for 

 breakfast. He had bicycled out and reached the 

 Ganges, which was in full flood, at night-fall. He 

 took out the inner tubes of his bicycle, inflated 

 them, and putting them round him as lifebelts 

 started to swim the river. But he had hardly 

 gone twenty yards when he was knocked half- 

 unconscious by the bough of a floating tree, and 

 carried back to the bank from which he had come. 

 The bicycle tubes saved his life. He spent the 

 night in a neighbouring village, and refreshed by 



