CHAPTER XV. 



NORFOLK PARTRIDGES. 



THE Chief has some partridge shooting in Norfolk. He has a 

 sort of sharing arrangement with a friend there by which they 

 shoot upon each other's ground. We were going down, he and 

 I, to try the Norfolk partridges. Englishmen will tell you that Norfolk 

 is the best partridge country in England. 



We traveled from shortly after midday until night to get an express 

 and then made an all-night journey to reach King's Lynn. From there 

 a waiting motor took us to Compton Hall, where the other man and 

 his friends, all Indians, were already assembled. 



Indians? Oh, not native Americans, of course not. Nor natives of 

 the land by India's Coral Strand. No; I mean by that Anglo-Indians; 

 Englishmen who had been in British India as civil service employes 

 of the Government there. A Governor, a Chief Excise Officer, a 

 Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Financial Official, a Judge and one 

 youngster, the son of one of the elders of the party, a subaltern in a 

 native regiment, then on duty upon the Afghan Frontier, his leave 

 terminating so soon that he would have to start for his station at the 

 end of this shoot. 



I believe anyone would agree with me that the English gentleman 

 is a fine type of man, and I believe there would be little disagreement 

 that the Anglo-Indian is the best type of Englishman. Big and broad, 

 and straight and strong, he is a man for any country to be proud of, 

 and a companion whose company is to be sought. 



Most of them have had their try at big game; tigers, Indian buffalo, 

 large and dangerous game of numerous kinds, and they have traveled 

 enough, seen enough, done enough, and been enough, to have reached 

 a fixed and satisfactory valuation of themselves and the other men and 

 things in the world. 



