d grins at our overcoats.

From the eighth milestone I see a doe, and the shikari spots it at the
same instant; and two adjutant cranes, silvery grey with dark heads like
ostriches--about six feet high, and a pair of horn-bills pass
overhead--lots to interest one every mile of the drive. At ten miles out
I spotted three does, and we got out to see if there wasn't a buck
somewhere, and a few minutes after I found him (first, being some inches
taller than the shikari). There was only a chance of getting within
range by a barefaced walk-round and then a crawl behind a knoll of old
clay wall--this we did, and I let off at about fifty yards and went over
the buck's shoulder and couldn't get in a second. Truth to tell I wasn't
quite sure whether I wasn't dreaming, the whole proceeding was so
unexpected and unfamiliar--ten miles out from a town, at eight in the
morning and to have a shot at a deer with no one to say you nay, I could
hardly believe it. And besides, to add to the unfamiliarity of this kind
of deer shooting, there were native cultivators all round, within every
half mile or so, in groups of two or three.

I was very sad. The shikari said nothing, but counted it out at seventy
yards. Looking over the top of the dyke I'd thought it a hundred and
probably took too full a foresight; anyway it was an abominably easy
shot to miss. I wished very much I'd taken a few practice shots with the
cumbersome weapon.

... We wander many a mile and it begins to get warm. We rest in the
shade of a group of mangrove trees on the hard, dry earth, and beside us
waves a patch of green corn. I am very sad indeed--I have missed two
beautiful black buck, or worse, the last I fired at, a lying down shot
(on thorns), after a run and a stalk to about 140 yards, was a trifle
too end-on, and I hit the poor beggar in the jaw I believe, and we
followed it for miles. Then my heart rejoiced, for a native said it had
fallen behind some bushes, but another said he'd seen it going on, very
slowly, and on we went after it; meantime we saw many other buck and
does, but we did our best and failed to pick up the one fired at.

So at ten we rest and I sit like Gautama Buddha under a tree and think
life is all a misery, and my followers bring food and drink and I refuse
almost all, but smoke a little and swear a lot. Overhead a pigeon tries
to coo to the end of its sentence and loses the word at the end every
time, and a green parrot fights with a crow