covered with a wild tangle of water
lilies and aquatic plants; well stocked with magnificent fish, and an
occasional scaly monster of a saurian. They were the haunt of vast
quantities of widgeon, teal, whistlers, mallard, ducks, snipe, curlew,
blue fowl, and the usual varied _habitues_ of an exceptionally good
Indian lake. In the vicinity hares were numerous, and in the thick
jungle bordering the tanks in places, and consisting mostly of nurkool
and wild rose, hog-deer and wild pig were abundant. The dried-up bed
of an old arm of the Koosee was quite close to my camp, and abounded
in sandpiper, and golden, grey, goggle-eyed, and stilted plover,
besides other game.

It was indeed a favourite camping spot, and the village was inhabited
by a hardy, independent set of Gwallas, Koormees, and agriculturists,
with whom I was a prime favourite.

I was sitting in my tent, going over some village accounts with the
village putwarrie, and my gomasta. A posse of villagers were grouped
under the grateful shade of a gnarled old mango tree, whose contorted
limbs bore evidence to the violence of many a _tufan_, or tempest,
which it had weathered. The usual confused clamour of tongues was
rising from this group, and the sub; ect of debate was the eternal
'pice.' Behind the bank, and in rear of the tent, the cook and his
mate were disembowelling a hapless _moorghee_, a fowl, whose
decapitation had just been effected with a huge jagged old cavalry
sword, of which my cook was not a little proud; and on the strength of
which he adopted fierce military airs, and gave an extra turn to his
well-oiled moustache when he went abroad for a holiday.

Farther to the rear a line of horses were picketed, including my
man-eating demon the white Cabool stallion, my gentle country-bred
mare Motee--the pearl--and my handsome little pony mare, formerly my
hockey or polo steed, a present from a gallant sportsman and rare good
fellow, as good a judge of a horse, or a criminal, as ever sat on a
bench.

Behind the horses, each manacled by weighty chains, with his ponderous
trunk and ragged-looking tail swaying too and fro with a never-ceasing
motion, stood a line of ten elephants. Their huge leathery ears
flapped lazily, and ever and anon one or other would seize a mighty
branch, and belabour his corrugated sides to free himself of the
detested and troublesome flies. The elephants were placidly munching
their _chana_ (bait, or food), and occasionally givi