my Mohammedan guide's strong
face, and the driver, and the little Hindoo shikari in his wrappings on
the box, and the light gets brighter, and, what was vague and
mysterious, dust and moonlight becomes prosaic flat barley-fields, with
white-clad figures picking weeds, and people at the roadside cottages
going about with lights, looking after domestic matters, and men sit
huddled round tiny fires and pass the morning pipe around--they,
apparently feel it chilly.

The very hot morning we spent wandering after elusive herds of black
buck, one of which I missed. A grand black fellow, with horns I could
see through the glass, beat all record, missed at 200 yards, both
barrels, couldn't get nearer, and anyone may have this double 450
cordite express and all its patents for price of old iron. I could have
smitten a bunnie both times at home at the distance--I'm sure this thing
throws inches high.

However, the weariness and the fret of the hot morning ends in a
delicious grove of trees that might be limes, plane and ash, and in the
middle of this bosky knoll there is a pool and a little temple,
picturesque to a degree at fifty yards, hideous close. The light filters
through the branches and falls on the dried mud and leaves.

As my man lays down my bag and useless weapon at the foot of the central
tree, there's a crash in the leaves above, and down and away goes a
glorious peacock. I try to calculate at which end of it I would fire had
I a gun. It's tail is so gorgeous you couldn't fire at it, and its neck
is also too beautifully blue to touch with shot; a minute after another
sails down, and goes off like a running pheasant. Doves come and
flutter and coo above us, and a pariah dog prowls round timidly. It
looks as if it had never wagged its tail in all its sad life, and it
swallows a chunk of my chicken at a gulp, and its tail never moves, poor
beast. The hot winds sough through the branches, and my men murmer away
to each other under a neighbouring tree, possibly about the Sahib, who
is such a poor shot, and, as our language is limited, I can't brag about
swagger shots in other days. One needs a friend to shoot with, alone you
lose half the charm. If you get hipped with a miss you can then growl
out loud to a sympathetic ear, and blow smoke over the day together.
There's only the pariah dog to talk to here, so I eat lunch and smoke
"my lone,"--"here, old Bicky, you can wolf the rest of the lunch,"--you
haven't much appe