Buck and Boar round Meerut 



remedy was tried with no effect. He was the 

 sort of animal that seemed to dwell, as you might 

 say, in the eye of an inspecting-officer to the 

 total exclusion of my other well-conditioned steeds. 

 He was a find ! Just what they were looking for, 

 and was regularly discovered. "Look at that 

 horse ! Where's the officer commanding this 

 troop ? " And unpleasantness was always caused. 

 With all this he was sound, fast, and handy, and 

 I had an idea that, with his military duties knocked 

 off, the minimum of work to keep him fit, and the 

 substitution of myself with hunting-saddle and 

 hog-spear, for a dragoon with his weighty para- 

 phernalia, he might yet do me a good turn or two, 

 to make up for all the trouble he had brought on 

 me. Accordingly, to make a long story short, at 

 the next auction of poor old " casters," one with 

 a half-clipped coat, and bits of rags judiciously 

 tied round his really sound legs, was bought by 

 a disreputable-looking nigger for thirty rupees 

 under two pounds then and that night C. 104 

 was in my stable. 



At the end of January five of us went out 

 after pig. The first day we beat alongside the 

 " Bora Gunga," an impassable morass, one of the 

 old beds of the Ganges. Two good boar and a 

 parah stag gave us short bursts, but all gained the 

 swamp; on our crossing by a ford we induced a 

 third boar to break for the rideable country, and 



81 G 



