Jungle By-Ways in India 



most machan. It consisted of a few scanty sticks 

 in a low tree, and I spent the next two hours 

 perched in the fork of the tree about 9 feet from 

 the ground in the hot afternoon sun. Long 

 before the ordeal was over I had come to the 

 conclusion that machan shooting was awful 

 rot, and that an afternoon March sun in Chota 

 Nagpur was a thing to be respected. 



The sum total of that beat was two pea-fowl 

 seen ! We had then over 20 miles to get back 

 to the station before dinner could be partaken 

 of! 



So ended my first day's beating in India, and 

 looking back in the light of some considerable 

 experience, it is not difficult to put one's finger 

 on the reasons for its total failure. 



We had gone out solely on some khubbar 

 which was subsequently found to have no founda- 

 tion save that of native rumour and gossip. 

 Once upon a time, in the memory of prehistoric 

 man, there had been bear, or a bear, in the 

 hills we had beaten, and it was on this handed- 

 down tradition that we had gone out. One 

 might just as well take an 8-bore rifle, sit in a 

 London park, and expect a rhinoceros to come 

 out of the nearest rhododendron clump ! 



The next attempt to meet Bruin, at which I 

 was present, was more successful. 



A few weeks after the fiasco above related, 

 four of us set out one afternoon to drive and ride 



288 



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