354 THE LEOPARDS' HAUNTS. 



is always desirable for the sportsman to learn all he possibly can of the 

 locality where he intends to shoot, I sent my tents to MdderhnUy and 

 arrived there myself on the morning of the 24th. After a cup of cofifee I 

 proceeded with Subba and his chief auxiliaries amongst the villagers to 

 inspect the ground. 



The garden was about a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad. The 

 middle part, throughout its entire length, was thinly planted with cocoa-nut 

 and plantain trees ; whilst, from the state of decay into which it had fallen, 

 the hedges had become overgrown patches of aloe-bushes, creepers, and thorny 

 thickets. The length of the garden lay north and south. The best covers 

 for the panthers and leopards were respectively the northern half of the east 

 boundary hedge, and the southern half of the west one. Subba said that the 

 leopards were generally to be found in the former, and the panther in the 

 latter place ; and we therefore decided that on the morrow the men should 

 begin to beat the east hedge from the north corner, and that I should 

 be stationed at a point about half-way down it, where a thin fringe of bushes 

 ran across the garden and formed a line of communication between the 

 thickets on each side. Of this connecting fringe we knew any animal 

 retiring before the beaters would take advantage, to cross the otherwise open 

 ground to the thickets in the south-west corner. There were no covers out- 

 side, and disconnected with, the garden itself, except one small patch of 

 dense aloe-bushes, about a hundred yards away from the south boundary 

 hedge. Having noted the places where markers should be stationed, and 

 having pointed out their posts to the men with us, to be occupied by them 

 next day, I returned to camp to breakfast. In the afternoon sixty stout 

 fellows — all Holoyas, or low-caste Hindoos — were enrolled as beaters, and 

 each had a gun- wad given him as a voucher, as after a beat many who only 

 help latterly, or not at all, will appear at the time of paying, and either the 

 sportsman is put to double expense, or the amount is divided amongst so 

 many as to make no one much the better. "With tickets, the black sheep 

 have no opportunity of obtaining money under false pretences. 



The Holoya caste is one of the few amongst Hindoos to which the use 

 of intoxicants is permitted ; and every afternoon those Holoyas who have 

 leisure, and who are lucky enough to have the necessary coppers, betake 

 themselves to the nearest beer-shop. This is a cleanly-swept spot undei 

 a shady tree, and is screened from the gaze of passers-by with plaited 

 cocoa-nut leaves. It is always situated at a little distance from the village, 

 in deference to the prejudices of the more numerous abstaining inhabitants. 

 The liquor supplied in the booth is the fermented sap of the wild date-tree 

 {Phcenix sylvestris), largely diluted with water. It stands in large froth- 



