300 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
Singh and his two brothers, Gholab and Dholab 
Singh. We killed forty-three sambur, and had I 
chosen to take females, I could have added ten or 
twelve to the already cruel butcher’s bill. 
It is seldom that I have met such dead shots as 
these brothers Gholab and Dholab. They were 
armed with ordinary matchlocks; these were about 
6 feet in length, smooth - bores, and carried 
a cast - iron spherical ball about i ounce, as 
smooth as a boy’s marble. This fitted exactly. 
They used a large charge of about 6 drams of 
native powder ; when I gave them Curtis and 
Harvey No. 6 grain it was reduced to 4 drams 
nominally, but they did not themselves approve of 
a reduction. 
Their matchlocks were superior to those in the 
hands of the ordinary shikaris, which are generally 
of so common a description that accidents frequently 
occur; the back-sights were carefully protected by a 
tunnel, and for a standing shot they were admirable. 
These people were not restricted to such easy 
triumphs, but they took the animals at any speed, 
and whenever a shot was fired by one of these fatal 
brothers, the game was bagged. 
I admired them for putting the bullet always in 
the right place. We never had to hunt up wounded 
animals. If I heard two shots in a drive, when the 
beaters or shikaris came up, I inquired, “Who fired?” 
If the reply was, “Gholab Singh,” I only asked 
whether it was “a stag or a female,” as I knew 
that it was dead. 
