ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 91 



I will now tell of an occasion when the writer of these 

 notes played by no means a heroic part. 



A day's sport had been arranged for the entertainment 

 of two shikar friends of F.'s, then on leave, and he was 

 keen to show them something good. The proposed scene 

 of action was not far from camp — a nullah, or ravine — 

 where a wild boar had his lair, a huge fellow that had been 

 marked down as a worthy object for the sportsmen's 

 prowess. I was to bear a part in the day's programme, and 

 with a dog or two was assigned a station at a point of 

 vantage, from which, if the boar broke cover below, I was 

 to turn him by waving my arms and throwing down small 

 pebbles, etc., with the idea of causing him to alter his 

 course and head upwards towards the rifles and away from 

 me, I being without one. As I stood there I, of course, 

 kept a close watch upon everything in the ravine and 

 along its sides ; and the dogs watched me the while in 

 perfect silence. Dear things ! I don't think they quite 

 understood my being there, and supposed themselves to 

 be on guard over me, or their trained eyes would have 

 been on the downward lookout too. It happened — con- 

 trary to my secret wish — that the boar did break cover just 

 below me, and came pounding up through the long reeds 

 and bushes from his hiding-place among the sedges in 

 the nullah, whence the men, with their teasing stones, 

 had dislodged him. The grizzly head, the great yellow- 

 white, gleaming tushes were making straight for me — no 

 mistake about it ! At the first sight of him every idea but 

 that of flight was gone. I stood not ' upon the order of ' 

 my going, but went at once, full pelt, the dogs after me. 



No doubt the boar could have caught me up soon enough 

 had he been so minded — and if he had I should not have 

 been writing here — but he did not even maintain the chase 

 very long. The behaviour of the dogs, first lagging and 

 then trotting leisurely, might have shown me that they saw 



