253 



WILD DUCK TRAPPING IN SOUTH 

 INDIA. 



I WAS spending a few days with my friend, Abdul 

 Gunnee, the Commissariat contractor, at his country 

 house in a village not far from Vellore, in the 

 Madras Presidency. My friend's residence was once 

 a palace belonging to one of the magnates of 

 Mahomed Ali's Court when that unscrupulous ruler 

 was Nawab of Arcot. The country around Vellore 

 and Arcot is dotted with many such buildings, 

 erected by the nobles of the Carnatic Court when 

 that State was the chief of the Mahomedan King- 

 doms of South India. Surrounded with gardens of 

 cocoanut and areca palms, orange groves, mango, 

 pomegranate and other fruit trees, these old build- 

 ings at once testify to the wealth, good taste and 

 love of ease of their former owners. 



I had ridden my friend's horses, had admired the 

 fountains which threw their myriad jets in various 

 parts of the garden, had tasted his mulgovas and dil- 

 pusund (varieties of graft-mango), and now what 

 else was there to do ? There was no shikar in the 

 neighbourhood beyond duck, and " surely the 

 Sahib was tired of walking in the mud and getting 

 wet to the middle in search of duck that he could 



