30 The Hunting Grounds 



on, and I have wandered over half the globe ; 

 still, when I hear those old, familiar airs, the 

 scene often comes before my eyes, and I think I 

 see the well-remembered features of my old asso- 

 ciates, in the forest and the field, who used to 

 sing them, although I know that many sleep 

 beneath the sod, having fallen on the field, or 

 been cut off by pestilence in the flower of their 

 years, and the few survivors are scattered, and 

 I have lost sight of most of them. India is 

 not, perhaps, a land to live in from choice, still my 

 heart clings to it with a kind of unhallowed love ; 

 for it ever appeared to me to possess a peculiarly 

 fascinating charm, which I have found wanting 

 elsewhere. Memory takes me back to those happy 

 days I passed in that glorious land; and as I look 

 around my boyhood's home, in my native land 

 (which to me long absence has given a novel 

 freshness), and see the trophies of many a hard- 

 fought field, and the spoils of my rifle and the 

 spear hanging against the wall, I often think with 

 affectionate regret of my old companions, and 

 dream of the land 



" Where the maidens are soft as the roses they twine, 

 And all, save the spirit of man, is divine." 



In the morning, at the time appointed, a bugle 

 again rang through the place, and we were soon 



