Introduction 



'for the jungles' this year, but what care we? 

 Next year, or the year after, we shall be occupying 

 their position. Now we are all intent on the 

 jungles and the glorious free life they have in 

 store for us. 



Sitting in one of the usual railway refreshment 

 (save the mark !) rooms so liberally provided for 

 the travelling public, I was seriously engaged in 

 making up my mind as to whether to try this 

 time the ifeesh with a queer blacky-brown sauce 

 to it ; the everlasting ichop, tough as blazes, and 

 floating in dirty coloured gravy ; the equally 

 inevitable ' bacon - egg,' the former like bits of 

 leather soaked in rancid fat, the latter of the most 

 doubtful freshness ; or that piece de resistance (in 

 more senses than one) of the East, the vegetable 

 and mutton (or goat) curry which is apt to prolong 

 reminiscences of breakfast to an undue length 

 throughout the day if partaken of at all freely. 

 With heavily knit brows I endeavoured to make 

 a choice, and it was perhaps a memory of the 

 breakfast-room at some of our great London 

 termini which brought to my mind the festival 

 of St. Grouse as I saw a train rumble slowly in to 

 the platform in front of me. A couple of agile 

 youngsters in khaki, subalterns obviously, tanned 

 and burnt brick-red by the days of exposure to the 

 hot -weather sun, sprang from a second-class 

 carriage (all the rupees are wanted for the ex- 

 penses of the shoot, and are not to be unnecesscLrily 



