SPORT IN ASIA AND AFRICA 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY 



IN my youth I shot urial (mountain sheep) in 

 the Jhelum district of the Punjab, but it was not 

 until 1899, when I was forty-four years of age, 

 that I had either the time or the opportunity 

 for big-game shooting. I lived, however, in hope. 

 In 1879 my right eye was badly injured in a polo 

 accident, and I taught myself to shoot from the 

 left shoulder in the hope that some day the chance 

 of using a rifle might fall to my lot. I should 

 have probably been a better shot at birds than 

 I am if I had continued to shoot from the right 

 shoulder and used a gun with a bent stock, but 

 I succeeded in learning to shoot very fairly well 

 with a rifle. 



As a boy my imagination was fired by the lion 

 stories of Gordon Cumming and of Jules Gerard ; 

 and when, after my appointment as Commissioner 

 of Northern Indian Salt Revenue in December 

 1898, the time for big-game shooting did come, 

 my first desire was to shoot tigers. The Jemadar 

 of the office, Mihtab Khan, was a genuine en- 

 thusiast for this form of sport. He was a most 

 useful man on a fishing expedition, as he was 

 i 



