THE RAINS. 



hold four, and owing to accidents and oversights, 

 our gear was of the most primitive nature. We 

 had one enormous caldron, in which we boiled our 

 pig- soup or our tea, as the case might be, and 

 from this, when its contents had somewhat cooled, 

 we, sitting in a circle round it, had to bale our 

 dinner with spoons constructed by some genius 

 from the bark of the willow. The process was 

 rather slower, owing to the incommodious shape 

 of the spoons, than lapping would have been, but 

 it was the only way. Amongst the many things 

 for which I have to be grateful to the Indo- 

 European Company is the one teacup which did 

 service for the four. This was neither more nor 

 less than a broken insulator which someone found, 

 with a piece of wood inserted in the hole at the 

 bottom to prevent leakage. 



Living in this primitive fashion, we passed 

 several days, and enjoyed fair sport ; the large 

 supply of meat which we had hung on the beech - 

 tree nearest our tent, attracting nightly bands of 

 jackals, who formed a cordon round us and kept 

 our dogs in a state of excitement the whole 

 twenty-four hours. Apart from the sport, my man 

 Niko was almost sufficient amusement in himself. 

 A wilder, less tutored fellow could not be found, 

 unless it were among savages ; full of supersti- 

 tion and stories of the chase, he always kept us 

 amused by the camp-fire. Amongst other things 



