92 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



The custom with Europeans in India is to have three or four ser- 

 vants to do the work of one man, and had I followed the ordinary 

 rule, I should have hired one man as a cook, another as " bearer," 

 another as general assistant, and a fourth loafer to boss the other 

 three. Instead of that I engaged a man whose caste could not pos- 

 sibly stand in the way of his doing any kind of work, who spoke 

 EngHsh very tolerably, and was an impudent rascal. I told him I 

 would require him to do the work of two ordinary servants, for 

 which I would pay him double wages, the most satisfactory arrange- 

 ment a traveller can make. 



I had come to Madras to coUect mammals of all sizes, and in 

 order to escape the heat of the plains during tlie hottest months, 

 and also to find good collecting ground at the same time, I de- 

 cided to visit the Neilgherry Hills. Accordingly, three days after 

 reaching Madras, I packed up and started by rail for the foot of the 

 Hills, accompanied by my new servant Appoo, as great a fraud as 

 I could have found in a mouth. 



