304 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
for the back-guns. None but practised natives 
could scale the heights, and when at length the stag 
came thundering back down the steep hillside, and 
the shot was heard, it was certain death if Gholab 
or Dholab were within ioo yards. These men and 
the eldest brother Bhopal Singh were great allies of 
mine, and I liked them exceedingly; their only 
fault consisted in their unsparing energy, which 
induced them to kill everything. 
Forsyth, in his most admirable work, The 
Highlands of Central India , gives a glowing account 
of stalking the sambur deer. The localities must 
have entirely changed since the days of his 
experience. I have been five times to India, and I 
have never yet seen a spot where stalking the 
sambur as a recognised sport could be adopted. 
In the first place, they are too scarce; and they are 
too much disturbed. 
Although I was eight years in Ceylon, during 
which I was shooting or hunting in every portion 
of the island, I am certain that I never shot half 
a dozen sambur. We never drove the jungles with 
beaters, but simply strolled through the most 
promising country, either upon our ponies or on 
foot, and took our chance of any game that we 
might meet. I rarely met sambur in the low 
country ; and, when living upon the mountains at 
Newera Ellia, 6200 feet above the sea-level, shooting 
sambur was out of the question. Although the 
interminable forests of that elevated district abounded 
with these animals, I have never seen one, unless 
