TIGER SLAYER BY ORDER 



With a view to instilling a sporting spirit amongst my 

 men, I introduced gymkhanas for the police force, in- 

 cluding tent-pegging, etc., in which other officials in the 

 station often took a part, as well as some of the officers 

 from the military depot nine miles off, who occasionally 

 came in. 



As prices advanced, however, owing to the famine, and 

 living consequently became dearer, many Europeans put 

 down their horses and took to bicycles instead. Finding 

 these as convenient and necessarily more economical, 

 several retained them permanently, with the result that 

 bicycle, in place of horse, events became ultimately the 

 chief feature in these gymkhana. 



No doubt some of the feats performed on these machines 

 were extraordinarily clever, but I often used to wonder 

 what our veteran sportsmen — now retired or defunct — 

 would have said to seeing the horse supplanted by such 

 inanimate steeds as these ! For performances on the latter, 

 however clever and complicated they might be, can 

 scarcely ^be compared with the bare-backed mounted events, 

 and other daring equine feats, which, in the days of these 

 old sportsmen, constituted the gymkhana. 



****** 



During the period I was stationed at Nasik, I spent all 

 my Christmases as usual in camp, going one year for ten 

 days to Pal, in my old District Khandesh, and one of my 

 favourite old haunts where I had heard tigers had increased 

 considerably since I left. 



I hoped therefore to get some, and possibly bison too, 

 for though I had killed so many of the latter, and have 

 several good heads, I had never kept a mask, so was 

 anxious to get one to set up. 



The cold at Pal is so intense that we had finally to 

 abandon our tents and take up our quarters in a small, 

 forest hut, built of mud, and consisting of three small 

 rooms. It had been built by a certain cheery individual, 



a doctor named P , who, in a fit of generosity, presented 



it to the Government. 



He used to be very amusing on the subject of the Govern- 

 ment Resolution he had received in return, thanking him 

 for his munificent gift, but poor as was the building I often 

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