REVIEW. 397 



The next deer on his list, the Hog-deer^ ia less interesting, being 

 indeed little better than something to empty a gun-barrel into, and 

 a fit subject for its chief use in this presidency -are^he battues of the 

 Amirs of Sind, which deserve description on their own account. 



The first step is to enclose a sanctuary as large as the sportsman 

 can afford, it may be 5 acres, it may be five hundred, with a Muhari^ 

 that is a wattle fence some eight feet high. The ground within it 

 must contain thick cover, it matters little what; the usual thing 

 is scrub tamarisk from 10 to 30 feet high. There may be the 

 Euphrates poplar (bhan) reaching even to 50 feet. 



In the ring fence there is one opening or more, according to the 

 size of the enclosure, and the number of guns meant to shoot, about 

 20 feet wide, rather less than more. On the right of this, as you 

 face inwards, is the "Kunda, " a thatched shed with a floor raised on 

 piles some two feet above ground, and its front open, but for a 

 brushwood balustrade rising some 18 inches or less above the corduroy 

 floor. Above, the eaves project far, usually at least three feet 

 beyond the balustrade. In such a building the gunner is almost 

 imperceptible, and shoots to his left, the easiest shot. 



When the enclosure and gun-shed are once built, the ingress of 

 man or domestic beast into the sanctuary is forbidden, and all wild 

 brutes, in the course of a few months, learn to look on it as a safe 

 refuge. 



To make things surer, for two or three days before a "big shoot," 

 the whole neighbourhood is tormented with beaters, rockets, and shots, 

 even of camel-swivels and falconets. Naturally the game crowd 

 into what they have learnt to look on as a sanctuary, and care naught 

 for the " kundas," familiar to them, in their empty state, as the 

 surrounding trees- It is sometimes found that the space beneath the 

 floors of these has been a lair. 



But on the day of the battue, the unhappy game wake up at 

 ungodly hours in the damp Sind mornings, to find one end of the 

 enclosure full of beaters with the fierce Sindi dogs. In every pass 

 out a cord is stretched across ; in the " kundas," the guns peer over 

 the balustrade. The wretched hog-deer, driven to the gaps, come to 

 a full halt before the cord, and are shot down without regard to age 

 or sex, standing before the gun. It has happened to the present 



