64 SLACK BUCK. 



can be no excuse for not enjoying sport. The shooting may be bad as far 

 as the man is concerned, but the scenes and their study will well repay 

 even the proverbial duffer. It is curious how differently the blackbuck 

 is scattered. In some parts you will see many herds every day, each 

 numbering some dozen good bucks, and hundreds of youngsters and does ; 

 in others you will find two or three bucks only and a dozen does, perhaps 

 twice in the day, but it is amongst these that the best heads are found* 

 Probably where bucks are numerous they are more sought after, as it 

 certainly taxes a man's patience to wander all day and see but one or two 

 small herds that are extra wary, and the general head- or pot-hunter 

 would vote it not worth the candle. But we are not all such, and many a 

 tale can be told where a good buck has been long sought after before he 

 fell to the lucky pursuer. I don't think the old '450 ever killed a large 

 one ; about 21^in. was the best, and even that it did not kill, only wounded 

 badly, and enabled another to finish off. 



We were on the march down country, and near the confines of the 

 Punjab, when the idea struck two of us that if we could obtain three 

 days' leave, we might reach the edge of a district famous for the length 

 of horn of its buck. Many of 25in. had we seen on the walls of the 

 Deputy- Commissioner and others, whose duties took them every cold 

 weather through those favoured parts, and many were the jokes cracked 

 as to the length of stay the said officials had made in the very best parts , 

 owing to a great excess of business there ! Somehow, no one else seemed 

 to find the big heads so often, and even the " silver bullet " was hinted 

 at sometimes. We determined we would have a try, and started for a 

 fifty-mile drive in the usual gharrie, drawn by the usual lean and 

 miserable tattoos, who were driven wildly from stage to stage, and then 

 led back reeking, to await the arrival of the next traveller. It was 

 always so on that road, and the reason easily discovered ; few passengers 

 meant small receipts, and the Dak Company was always near bankruptcy. 



We had our dinner in an old serai and then started, with our kit, in 

 two pony eckas. These contain no real springs in any part of their 

 frames ; there are sundry bamboo and split -wood lattice girders about 

 them, but I never could find springs ; and when you travel along unmade 

 roads, to which Irish boreens would be Rotten Rows, you are certain to 

 feel every bone in your body dislocated, every muscle lacerated, perhaps 

 a tooth dislodged, and your temper ruffled ! Twelve miles and a half of 

 this torture we had in the dark, and though we varied our positions 

 many times, changing sides, &c., no rest could we obtain. We were both 

 " six-footers," and quite unable to sit cross-legged like tailors which is 

 the position affected by the wily natives, for whom these instruments of 

 torture were constructed. I could not help wondering how their bones 

 and muscles stood the rude shocks, but supposed they had not the same 

 feelings as ourselves. When we reached the rest-house where we were to 

 put up, we found we were in a very out-of-the-way spot, only visited at 

 long intervals by officials in civil employ; everything was dirty and out of 



