CAMP HOURS. 351 



is commonly followed from nine or ten in the morning till 

 evening ; and much the same hours are observed at other 

 times when intelligence of a fresh kill, or of a tiger tracked 

 and marked down, is waited for before the howdahs are 

 mounted; but in excessively hot weather it is preferable to 

 sally out as soon after dawn as is possible, and to return to 

 camp by two in the afternoon at the latest, allowing eight 

 hours for sport and five of daylight for the elephants to bring 

 in fodder, to be bathed and washed, and for the attendants to 

 cook and eat a midday meal. When sport has been very good 

 I have risen before dawn, and, after some light refreshment, 

 have been out till near sunset for several days in succession ; 

 but this cannot be persevered in for long without knocking 

 up the elephants and servants. The hottest, as well as the 

 worst time, for sport is that between an hour or two after 

 noon and near sunset in the hot season, when wild beasts 

 retire to their most remote lairs, and the elephants and 

 their drivers become weary and depressed with the heat. 

 The " mahouts " have this advantage over their charges in 

 so much as they ride while the elephants walk; but, on the 

 other hand, the latter feed heartily upon the tops of the 

 grasses and reeds beaten up, whereas the former maintain a 

 strict fast till return to camp, with the exception of an 

 occasional pull at the cocoa-nut " hookah " passed round 

 during a halt, or a chew of the " pan " leaf. 



Small parties are generally to be preferred to large ones, 

 at which fun and frolic are more remarkable than good sport. 

 Nothing can be more delightful than a camp of four keen 

 sportsmen bent on a hunting and shooting trip of two or 

 three weeks, with all the necessary accompaniments of 

 elephants, horses, and dogs, and prepared for every kind 

 of sport, on foot, in the howdah, or in the saddle. , 



Sometimes great parties are formed by native grandees 

 and others, often with the object of showing attention to men 

 in authority and their friends or guests who may be on the 

 trot round the world ; and these take the field with much 

 pomp and circumstance, with as many as a dozen or fifteen 



