even then in the Secret Service. I was the real messenger to Yi Yong Ik, my friend. You were only a make-believe. Do not be angry. It was necessary to deceive the Japanese. Did you think you were really like an Englishman, Ivan Koravitch? Oh! Of course, the Japanese knew you were a Russian all the time, more especially the proprietor of the inn at Ping Yang, yes? Also, Yi Yong Ik knew that I was to carry the real message; no one would suspect a drunken pig, eh, my friend? And that the message he was to give you was to fall into the hands of the Japanese. The Governor chose you because you were young, and report said that you were careless-your pardon-do not get angry. Really, it was a very good jest. Yes? Also Yi Yong Ik knew that the interpreter who was present at your interview was a traitor to him, and would tell the Japanese spies-for money they gave him—that you were carrying a letter to the Governor of Port Arthur. After you had returned to the inn at Seoul that night, I had an interview with that very crafty statesman, and received from him the real letter to give to the Governor. The one he gave you said that on no account would he support Russia, and that was what we wished the Japanese to think.

“Of course, we counted on your being robbed. Yi Yong Ik told me you had put his letter in your pocket-book, and

when those two Japanese played jiu-jitsu on you I thought all was well-that they had obtained the letter. Then, from your manner, I guessed you were a leetle more clever than I had thought. That night you thought I had gone drunk to bed, but I was very sober. And I searched your clothes to find where you carried the letter. It was only the next day that I knew-when you took your sword from your stick I saw the paper round it. That is why I tried to strike the stick out of your hand. But again you were too clever. That night I pretended to be drunk, and I managed to let out to the Japanese hotel proprietor he was a spy of high station-that you had something valuable in your coat-pocket. Just before, while you were at dinner-it was your one mistake, you had left your stick in the next room, I took the paper from the sword, putting a blank one in its place, and, when you were asleep, I put the paper in your coat-pocket. You very nearly caught me! But was I not a drunken pig when you came into my room? And I snored, yes?

"Of course, it was the proprietor himself who came into your room, and took Yi Yong Ik's letter from your pocket. I suppose he was very much pleased. The Governor told me he was a leetle frightened when you said you had brought the letter safely, but when he saw it was only a blank one,

laugh at oneself as one sees oneself in the past. For it makes one great amusements. Splendid!

"The end of Yi Yong Ik ? The Japanese found him out— that he was intriguing with Russia. And when they entered Seoul in 1904 they took him away from his country. I do not know what became of him. But because he had deceived me and laughed behind my back, and because he had given me a very nasty dinner which was an upset to my stomach, I was glad to know that he was not very comfortable when the Japanese at length captured him. Splendid!"

we

"hunt only with Mr Surtees or Mr Masefield-in orthodox pink and in an orthodox manner. But here in India we are much less exclu.sive. Here one vernacular term comprehensively embraces the pursuit of all created thingsby fair means or by foul; if your quarry be the very fishes of the waters under the earth, you still hunt. Lest there should be any misconception, therefore, let me hasten to state that, in this paper, the verb is to be construed in its wider, its more catholic, sense.

As doubtless you will have gleaned from the title, it is our main purpose to hunt the antelopes, with whom I include their next-of-kin, the gazelles. Of course, the antelopes and gazelles of India and the adjacent countries cannot compare with those of Africa, either in variety or development of horn. Nevertheless, we can count, within the limits so set us, some eight distinct varieties, not to mention these intriguing nondescripts, the "goat-antelopes," of whom we have at least two varieties more. And the country which these ten tribes inhabit ranges from the upland valleys of the Tibetan Chang-where no man dwells-to the deserts of Arabia and the tropical forests

VOL. CCXVII.-NO. MCCCXIII.

Country to

suit all tastes. Let us begin, then, with the tribes that dwell nearest to our doors-to wit, the Indian antelope or blackbuck, and the chinkara or Indian gazelle.

In the plains of India wherever the country is suitable— from Madras to the mountains of the north-west, from Bengal to the Persian frontier-you will meet the Indian antelope or his lesser cousin the gazelle. As often as not, indeed, you will meet the two together. But not always. For the antelope likes his country flat. Over the plough- and grassland by Jumna and Ganges, between the desert and the sown in Bikanir, on the vast black cotton - flats of Central India, he wanders in herds; while the gazelle, on the other hand-a less gregarious beast,

prefers his country a trifle accidented, likes rocky ridges where the dak- and thornscrub grow, and whence, as the shadows lengthen, he descends on dainty tripping raids to the little strips of cultivation which there mark the scanty pockets of arable soil. So, eschewing alike mountain and forest, they divide the plains of India between them in perfect concord. Every globe-trotter who lands in Bombay-do he but use his eyes

must see them flash by his carriage window a score of times before ever he sights the Taj Mahal or Humayan's Tomb. I feel, therefore, that some sort of apology is due for a description of such entirely everyday beasts.

My apology is simple. We new-comers to India of ten, fifteen years ago had for one of our traditions the shooting of big game. I use the past tense advisedly, for the post-war generation would seem perhaps to follow other gods. And most of us were "entered " to black-buck and chinkara beasts neither large nor for midable certainly; but then, mark you, one worked without a stalker, so one learnt a lot. And not solely stalker's lore; though, as to that, one learnt the virtue of patience in adversity; to know one's rifle and to judge distances; to size heads through one's glasses, and to avoid the watchful doe. All very useful knowledge. But from a wider viewpoint there was much more in it than that. One learnt to find one's way across new country by the map; to know the birds, the beasts, and the trees of the countryside and the crops in their rotation; one learnt the language as one would never have learnt it from mere textbooks-without which knowledge India is indeed a land of exile; and above all one learnt to know something of the people, the tillers of the soil. So black-buck and chinkara are old and cherished friends,

of whom, to me at least, it is pleasant to talk and think.

A

Black-buck and chinkara may be shot in a variety of ways. You may venture forth, devouring space, in a RollsRoyce, and return laden with heads without once having set foot outside your car-unless indeed you have overtaxed the endurance even of a Rolls. This method demands considerable nerve, a high degree of marksmanship, and an unlimited banking account; it is exclusively reserved for "princes and rich men." bullock-cart you will find safer, surer, and very much cheaper. Hire the bullock-cart of the agriculturist, and freight it with food, drink, and your own vile body; then let it lurch down on the unsuspecting herd. No nervous strain or vulgar exertion; possess your soul in patience, and a sitting shot at point-blank range is assured. This method is greatly favoured by our Indian politicians while the Assembly is adjourned.

Personally I give a miss to both these methods-to the former for obvious reasons; to the latter, since I am such a wretched sailor that the oscillations of a bullock - cart at once prove fatal. Let us rather go a-hunting together at the beginning of the rains, a season of the year when the globe-trotter has long since hied him back to London or New York, the prince has sought his summer retreat in the Himalayas, and the bullockcart is stuck fast to its axles

in the mud. The fierce dry heat of early summer is over. Then the country lay a parched and dusty waste, and all Nature slept. The black-buck thengallantry forgotten-discarded his full-dress black to don the modest brown of his ladies. Followed the chota barsāt, the preliminary "little rains," with their thunder and tearing yellow dust-storms. Nature stirred in her sleep; life was ceasing to be a grim struggle for bare existence. And the black-buck -straightway ashamed of his sad attire-bethought him anew of his black-and-white livery. Now the monsoon has burst in earnest ; we dwellers in the plain rejoice. Let us abroad to shake up our livers. And that is precisely where the antelopes, each after his kind, come in so handy; they provide us with an object. Other seasons offer other attractions: duck and snipe, partridge, sandgrouse, and pig. But now, in the rains, small game is out of season, and the country is unrideable. Remain, therefore, the black-buck, the chinkara, and last but greatest far in bulk-that huge cow-like antelope, the nilgai, who, though weighing a good forty stone, yet carries by way of horns nothing better than miserable prongs in no proportion to his bulk. Still even the least attractive of us has some redeeming feature; with the nilgai it is his marrow-bones that justify his existence.

A day such as I have in mind has a charm all its own,

though, indeed, the air is like to be warm and steamy as an orchid-house. There is the ride out by country tracks through the busy fields. Our way takes us parallel to the river through a broken country overhanging its bed-a country of sandy ravines and great brakes of jungle-grass. Below us, the river sliding between its banks of tamarisk; on the landward side, India's unfenced fields, stretching, with here a village and there a mango-grove, as far as eye can see. The banks of monsoon-cloud have been piling up since dawn; a few hours more and the skies will open once again, and the floods descend upon the earth. And in every field the ploughman has gone forth to plough and the sower to sow.

Have you ever ridden out on the broad bosom of Hindustan on such a monsoon day? Have you ever smelt the smell of the field which the Lord hath blessed, and felt the kiss of the rain-laden breeze 80 different from the fiery blast that scorched your cheek but a few short days ago? Have you ever watched all Nature wake before your eyes, and the earth, which was a parched desert yesterday, grow green to-day with sprouting grass and corn? Then-for deep in every heart there lurks the pagan still-then surely must you have felt as on such a day feel I that the 'gods dethroned and deceased waking, too, from their agelong sleep, are creeping out

are