own to the deep channel of the river in narrow streams.
These streams cut their way easily through the soft alluvial soil,
which must once have formed the bed of a vast lake.[14] On coming
through the forest, before sunrise we discovered our error of the day
before, for we found excellent deer-shooting in the long grass and
brushwood, which grow luxuriantly at some distance from the city. Had
we come out a couple of miles the day before, we might have had noble
sport, and really required the _forbearance and humanity_ to which we
had so magnanimously resolved to sacrifice our 'pride of art' as
sportsmen; for we saw many herds of the nilgai, antelope, and spotted
deer,[15] browsing within a few paces of us, within the long grass
and brushwood on both sides of the road. We could not stay, however,
to indulge in much sport, having a long march before us.

Notes:

1. Some readers may be shocked at the notion of the author shooting
pig, but, in Bundelkhand, where pig-sticking, or hog-hunting, as the
older writers call it, is not practised, hog-shooting is quite
legitimate.

2. The common antelope, or black buck (_Antilope bezoartica_, or
_cervicapra_) feed in herds, sometimes numbering many hundreds, in
the open plains, especially those of black soil. Men armed with
matchlocks can scarcely get a shot except by adopting artifices
similar to those described in the text.

3. Sixteen species of hawks, belonging to several genera, are trained
in India. They are often fed by being allowed to suck the blood from
the breasts of live pigeons, and their eyes are darkened by means of
a silken thread passed through holes in the eyelids. 'Hawking is a
very dull and very cruel sport. A person must become insensible to
the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the
brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it. The cruelty
lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks' (_Journey through the
Kingdom of Oude_, vol. i, p, 109). Asoka forbade the practice by the
words: 'The living must not be fed with the living' (Pillar Edict V,
_c._ 243 B.C., in V. A. Smith, _Asoka_, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 188).

4. The wording of this sentence is unfortunate, and it is not easy to
understand why the author mentioned Bhopal. The principality of
Bhopal was formed by Dost Mohammed Khan, an Afghan officer of
Aurangzeb, who became independent a few years after that sovereign's
death in 1707. Since that time the dynasty has always co