THE RAINS. 347 



marauding jackals, we kept along the edge of the 

 cliffs until we came to the fairest site for a sports- 

 man's grave that the mind of man could conceive. 

 Here, on the very summit of a gracefully rounded 

 hill-top, was some three acres of greensward, almost 

 as fine and even as an English lawn. Up to its 

 very edge rose the dense forest-trees, through 

 and over the tops of which came glimpses of the 

 opalescent sea far down beneath. Here, in the morn- 

 ing, the soft sea-breezes shook music out of the 

 rustling leaves, and in the evening the lengthening 

 shadows wove strange traceries on the grass. 

 Here the wild cherry-blossoms whitened the sward 

 in the spring-time, and in autumn the drooping 

 vines hung heavy clusters over the dead chiefs 

 tomb, in recognition of the tender care his ancestors 

 had bestowed upon the parent vine in days gone 

 by. What a difference between this breezy sunlit 

 hill-top and the terrible regions of brick and 

 mortar in which, after their narrow life in town, 

 the dead of London lie pent ! t One could almost 

 echo the sentiment of a veteran fox -hunter speak- 

 ing of his favourite grass country as compared to 

 another, ' It would be better to be buried here than 

 live there.' 



But in the mids* of our day-dreaming a dis- 

 traction of a sufficiently startling nature called us 

 back to the present. In admiring the view we 

 had strolled from our first post of observation into 



