make him rashly attack so
dangerous a customer, so he told me. 'Hum usko jans deydea oos wukt,'
that is, 'I _gave_ the brute its life that time, but,' he continued,
'had I had an English gun like this, your honour, I would have blown
the _soor_ (_Anglice_, pig) to hell.' Old Mehrman was rather strong in
his expletives at times, but I was not a little amused at the cool way
he spoke of _giving_ the leopard its life. The probability is, that had
he only wounded the animal, he would have lost his own.

These Nepaulese are very fond of giving feasts to each other. Their
dinner-parties, I assure you, are very often 'great affairs.' They are
not mean in their arrangements, and the wants of the inner man are very
amply provided for. Their crockery is simple and inexpensive. When the
feast is prepared, each guest provides himself with a few broad leaves
from the nearest sal tree, and forming these into a cup, he pins them
together with thorns from the acacia. Squatting down in a circle, with
half-a-dozen of these sylvan cups around, the attendant fills one with
rice, another with _dhall_, a third with goat's-flesh, a fourth with
_turkaree_ or vegetables, a fifth with chutnee, pickle, or some kind of
preserve. Curds, ghee, a little oil perhaps, sugar, plantains, and
other fruit are not wanting, and the whole is washed down with copious
draughts of fiery rice-whiskey, or where it can be procured, with
palm-toddy. Not unfrequently dancing boys or girls are in attendance,
and the horrid din of tom-toms, cymbals, a squeaking fiddle, or a
twanging sitar, rattling castanets, and ear-piercing songs from the
dusky _prima donna_, makes night hideous, until the grey dawn peeps
over the dark forest line.

Early in January, 1875, my camp was at a place in the sal jungles
called Lohurneah. I had been collecting rents and looking after my seed
cultivation, and Pat and our sporting District Engineer having joined
me, we determined to have a beat for deer. Mehrman Singh had reported
numerous herds in the vicinity of our camp. During the night we had
been disturbed by the revellers at such a feast in the village as I
have been describing. We had filled cartridges, seen to our guns, and
made every preparation for the beat, and early in the morning the
coolies and idlers of the forest villages all round were ranged in
circles about our camp.

Swallowing a hasty breakfast we mounted our ponies, and followed by our
ragged escort, made off for the