360 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



tent and a few necessary implements of travel, and hire a 

 camel to carry them, buy a rough pony for £5 of £10, hire 

 a couple of servants, and plunge with his rifle into the 

 wilderness. If capable of speaking the Hindi language, 

 and concihatory towards the wild men, he would soon have 

 about him a knot of real jungle hunters who would take 

 him up to every sort of game ; while his monthly expenses 

 would not exceed £10 or £15. Saddlery, hunting imple- 

 ments of all sorts (excepting boar spears, which are made , 

 better in India), ammunition, and clothes, should be 

 brought from England. 



In the matter of guns and rifles, improvements are still 

 so rapidly progressing that the dicta of one year are very 

 hkely to be upset before the next. Regarding breech- 

 loading it is sufficient to say that by the universal consent 

 of sportsmen, the use of the muzzle-loader is now confined 

 to exceedingly remote countries where the cartridge cases 

 cannot be carried. No part of India answers to this 

 description, and a muzzle-loader is now rarely seen there. 

 The " Express " system consists in the use of a short 

 conical buUet, hollowed at the point hke a shell — ^but without 

 any bursting charge, and propelled by a very great charge 

 of powder in proportion to its weight. The first resiilt 

 of this is that the biillet, striking with extreme velocity, 

 has its hollow point opened out by the shock into the shape 

 of a mushroom, or even, when the hollow is very deep and 

 the speed great, broken altogether into fragments, which 

 take difierent courses through the animal and inflict a 

 terrific wound. This complete breaking up of the bullet 

 has as yet been effected only with very small gauges, not 

 larger than the haL£-inch ('SiOO) diameter; but projectiles 

 of even this size have been found to be amply sufficient 

 to km efiectually all animals of the deer class, and 

 hardly any other description of rifle is now used for that 

 purpose. 



Their only serious disadvantage is the smaUness of the 

 hole they make on entering, while they rarely pass through 

 an animal of any considerable size, rendering the work 

 of tracking, should the animal leave the spot, a matter of 

 some difficulty. I have found that generally a deer 



