92 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



nothing to run from, so when I at length dared to glance 

 over my shoulder there was no boar in sight. Meanwhile 

 not a shot had been fired. Evidently the day's sport was 

 spoilt ; but little cared I, though destined to hear plenty 

 about it later, and that not in the way of congratulation or 

 praise. Never again did F. make arrangements for me to be 

 of the party when they were after pig, nor did I ask to go. 



Once F. brought back from a pig-sticking excursion a 

 lovely little hog deer — so called from the slight resem- 

 blance of its curved back to that of the boar tribe. The 

 grass had been fired, and its mother was unable to rescue 

 it ; but he did so, and carried it all day inside his shirt, 

 riding though he was, and with a long spear to manage. 

 Neither did he shorten the day's sport on its account : he 

 fed it with a rag dipped in milk, and it slept warm and safe. 

 So tiny was this little creature that it stood easily on one's 

 hand. It had the neatest little black hoofs, and in a short 

 time sprouting horns. If put out it would paw the ground 

 angrily and ever so majestically, just like any other stag. 

 Hog deer never stand higher than ten or eleven inches even 

 when full grown, and are rarely found. In spite of our 

 care for it this one came to an untimely end. When it 

 was being taught to eat grass — not taking to it naturally as 

 you would think — a small truss was accidentally left in its 

 bed, and it fed then to such purpose as to become ' hoven ' 

 — an extended state of the stomach — and it did not recover. 



Another quaint pet once brought home by F. was a 

 leopard-cat kitten, whose mother had deserted it, or more 

 likely been shot. When full grown it was not so big as 

 an ordinary cat, and a perfect miniature leopard — panther 

 as we called it — in form and colouring ; its every movement 

 betokening the jungle-bred creature. As a kitten it was 

 desperately wild, and never became really domesticated, 

 though it was gentle enough with those it knew, yet not 

 moving freely among them, always skirting the sides of 



