EAYINE DEER AND BLACK BUCK HUNTING. 71 



the table set with snowy linen and glistening silvei-. Fifteen min- 

 utes later we were discussing the various courses of soup, roast mut- 

 ton, fowls, vegetables, and the finest dish of curry and rice I ate any- 

 where in the East Indies. The table was set out in the open air, 

 under the stars, and it seemed that such a roving, out-door life as 

 my friends led in the dry and pleasant winter months was simply 

 a continuous picnic, more enjoyable than life in the best town-house 

 that ever was built. 



Mrs. Ross was the life of the camp, and her sparkling vivacity 

 imparted to it a charm as refreshing as a mountain breeze. Under 

 her energetic management the camp was always a model of neat- 

 ness and comfort, and I was sui-prised to find that a lady in camp 

 could be so great a blessing. ]VIrs. Ross rode, walked, and played 

 lawn tennis daily vnth astonishing energy, considering the climate. 

 She often accompanied us in our shorter hunting excursions, and 

 we literally laid the spoils of the chase at her feet, proudly or other- 

 wise, according to our luck. 



Major Ross was my Encyclopeedia Indica, and like the model 

 British officer that he is, there was scarcely a subject that his in- 

 formation did not cover. A traveller meets a great many persons 

 who are willing to answer his questions, and he soon learns to judge 

 by the ring of the metal whether it is pm-e or not. The friendship 

 of a man whose facts are always to be depended upon is something to 

 be prized, and in this world of falsehoods and exaggeration it is 

 like a glimpse of heaven to meet a man who never exaggerates. 

 Such a man is Major Ross, and his brothei'S are like him. 



The ravines that border the Jumna for half its entu-e length 

 are very interesting from a geological point of view. Once these 

 uplands extended in a high and fertile level plain quite down to 

 the river, where they ended abruptly in a long continuous bluff. 

 The water which fell upon this table-land along the river sought 

 the lower level of the stream by pouring over the edge of the bluff, 

 imtil first little gulleys and then deep ravines were cut down 

 through the plain, and their beds became almost as low as the 

 water in the river. The steep sides of these long ravines were in 

 their turn furrowed and cut through by the little streams which 

 poured down them during the heavy rains of the wet season, and 

 the fertile soil of the plain was washed into the ravines and swept 

 away. Beneath this was a continuous stratum of hai'd, unweath- 

 ered clay, which does not readily grow grass, etc., and thus 

 collect vegetable mould, and which has stubbornly resisted the 



