32 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



receiving field pay and allowances, and stationed about seven 

 hundred miles to the north-west, at Jaulnah in the Deccan, 

 and was ordered to the fort and station of Vellore, to join 

 a large detachment about to march up the country in the 

 direction of my own destination. 



I now hoped to exchange the flat and swampy paddy- 

 fields and uninteresting scenery of Wallajabad for the moun- 

 tains and forests that I had so long dreamt of, and the whole- 

 sale destruction of snipes for larger and nobler game ; and it 

 was with very few feelings of regret that I bid adieu to this 

 celebrated locale of snipes, paddy-fields, and cholera. 



My first march on the road to Arcot, at that period the 

 largest cavalry station in the Presidency, was Conjiveram, 

 celebrated for its curious and extensive pagoda, and I was there 

 very nearly getting into a terrible scrape with the Brahmins, 

 and breaking one of the most strict rules in the service, 

 unintentionally and from sheer ignorance of the almost super- 

 natural respect paid by these people to their religious usages 

 and emblems. This immense pagoda, like most others, is 

 surrounded by a tope or grove of magnificent trees, banyans 

 and others, and amongst the branches of which I quickly 

 espied some beautiful peafowl. Concluding they were of 

 the wild kind, and being the first I had seen in India, I soon 

 brought down a splendid cock bird, which I handed to my 

 sable attendant, who was a pariah, or, as he called him- 

 self, "Christian caste; all same caste as Massa:" "drink 

 brandy, eat ebery ting, all same as Massa." Upon pro- 

 ceeding further, and gaining the front or chief entrance to 

 the pagoda, I observed that all the salient points, roofs, 

 and pinnacles, were covered with monkeys. These I con- 

 sidered were far too numerous to be individual pets, and was 

 totally unaware of their sacred attributes, and having 

 slipped a ball into one barrel, was in act of taking aim at a 

 very impertinent looking member of the tribe, who was 



