124 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



and the cook a pony each, as they had to do the hard 

 work, while the shikaris and I walked. It was ludi- 

 crous to see old Thomas, my Cingalee servant, on 

 horseback, his face shining with delight, as he had 

 never been on one before. Thomas came from Co- 

 lombo, and seemed nearly eighty years old. Several 

 people had prophesied that he would not live through 

 the trip, but he was such an excellent servant that 

 I had decided to take the risk. He had shed his skirt 

 for the regulation puttoo suit which we had given to 

 each of our men, and had placed a turban above his 

 gray "Psyche knot" with its tortoise-shell comb, 

 and no one would ever have recognized in this trans- 

 formed individual the former sarong-clad Cingalee. 

 Thomas's efficiency as an interpreter, however, was 

 soon found to be nil : he spoke broken English well, 

 but his Hindustanee proved to be so weak that we 

 ourselves soon learned enough of the language to 

 dispense with his assistance. Our only other inter- 

 preter, a Simla boy named Paul, was caught stealing 

 from our supplies when he had been on the road less 

 than a week, and we were obliged to discharge him 

 on the spot, from which moment we were left entirely 

 on our own resources for communicating with the 

 shikaris, who of course spoke not a word of English. 

 At the end of three months we were able to speak 

 Hindustanee fluently and readily, though it was 



