SPORT IN NEPAL.

THE yearly crowd of English tourists, who now include India in their tramps abroad, and who contrive to come to final conclusions on the political, social, and sporting aspects of the country, during their three months' stay, have as yet hardly tried to penetrate a vast territory, which lies but a two days' journey from many of the great stations on the beaten track. The reason is not far to seek. Nepal still boasts of an independence enabling her to make her own laws, maintain her own army, and regulate her own affairs. She does so in that strictly Oriental fashion still carried on by the Chinese and those nations which glory in the same civilisation that they possessed two thousand years ago.

Roads, railways, telegraphic communication—in fact, all modern improvements are looked upon with suspicion and hatred. The Nepalese have done without these things for centuries, and wish to do so still. Furthermore, the enterprising globe-trotter, who would attempt to enter the country without a passport signed by a high Nepalese official, would speedily be interrogated and forcibly thrust over the border, to return discomfited to the beaten track of his fellow-travellers. Having had the good fortune to be invited by the Maharajah, Bir Shamshir, prime minister and guardian to the young king of Nepal, we leave Calcutta early in December to join his shooting party. After a couple of comfortless nights in the train we reach a small terminus, from which a five miles' ride on an elephant lands us in what is known as the Nepal-terai. The elephant on which we ride is a small one, and is supposed to shake the rider as little as possible, but to us novices the shaking is far from being a gentle one. At a word from his 'mahout a wild-looking creature who sits between the elephant's ears and pricks him with an iron staff-he goes down on his knees, and one climbs on to his back as best one can, holding on by his tail with both hands and trying to get a footing on his slippery quarters. At last one manages to scramble up, and one finds oneself on a square cushion, almost as slippery as the elephant's back. The first time, when the great beast rises on his fore legs then on his hind ones, it is all one can do to hold on by the ropes which are fastened to the sides of the pad;

but practice makes perfect, and in a short time one learns to adapt oneself to the curious motion. A good small elephant will shuffle along easily at the rate of five miles an hour, climbing steep ravines. and other obstructions, so that the rider often finds himself hanging on in an almost perpendicular position. No animal is so surefooted as an elephant. He will climb steep banks, and slide down into river-beds, with as much ease as an Irish pony, but he particularly objects to a bog, and let no one attempt to ride him over one; for if he finds himself sinking in, his first impulse is to drag the rider off and put him under his feet, by way of having something to stand on-a proceeding one would hardly approve of.

At the end of this our first march we are in the Maharajah's camp, where we find everything arranged for a grand shoot in a tract of jungle which has not been disturbed by the crack of a sportsman's rifle for thirteen years. In this camp we are most hospitably entertained by Major Durand, C.B., British Resident in Nepal. We have now reached what we hope will prove to be our happy hunting-grounds, for this terai is known to abound with tiger, leopard, deer, and smaller game-a very paradise for the keen shikaree. Bir Shamshir's camp would astonish the most luxurious of modern sportsmen. The Maharajah inhabits a scarlet tent, surrounded by his numerous ladies (fifty-one in all!) with the tents of his brothers, generals, and other grandees pitched close by, the whole being enclosed by a red and white calico wall. At night this camp is lighted with large square lamps, on posts like those in Piccadilly, and for miles around the sky takes a glow from the thousands of fires of our huge bivouac. After dinner we listen to the strains of a brass band, which performs selections from 'Pinafore,' and other popular airs, varied occasionally by a Nepalese tune, which is a medley of drums, fifes, and trumpets all howling together in serious discord. It is difficult to imagine what the wild beasts and chattering monkeys must think of our sudden appearance in their hitherto undisturbed homes! This semi-barbaric splendour, set down suddenly in the midst of lonesome, far-away jungles, causes us to feel how utterly incongruous we are with our surroundings. The enormous host of 12,000 souls, which accompanies the Maharajah, can only be likened to those armies of the middle ages which were wont to gather round a king or chief for the yearly campaign and loot of neighbouring cities. Several of the royal Nepalese regiments march with us as escort: fine, strong men armed with Martini-Henry rifles, manufactured by native armourers at the capital, Katmandoo. They wear the silver badge of their several regiments stuck in their black, close-fitting caps, and in their belts long curved knives called cookries, which they use with great effect, not only on their enemies, but also on such trees and bushes as impede their progress across country. The sheaths of these knives also contain two smaller ones, with which they cut up their food, and VOL. XXVI.-No. 149.

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also pouches for their money, tobacco, and toothpicks. The smartest regiment is called the Rifle Brigade. The army is drilled to English words of command, and is maintained in a most efficient manner.

We have all heard of the pluck and dash of the tiny little Ghoorkas, who enlist in the British service and have done so well in recent wars; but it may not be so generally known that these are all emigrants from Nepal, who are allowed to cross the frontier, to enlist for the English army with the special permission of the Nepalese authorities. What we cannot help remarking is that, although our own Ghoorkas are proverbially very small men, the average Nepalese soldier is a fine strapping big fellow.

If we might venture a mild criticism, it would be that this fine army is slightly deficient in cavalry, that dashing branch of the service being only able to muster twenty lancers, mounted on chargers which would hardly be accepted by a smart colonel of British cavalry. But what is still more important to us from the sportsman's point of view is the army of some six hundred elephants which accompanies ust and carries our tents and all the impedimenta of our vast company, besides beating the jungles when we go out to shoot. On these occasions over four hundred are employed, the savage fighting ones being kept solely to catch and subdue their wild brethren who still roam the jungles in happy freedom.

The champion of these fighting elephants is Bigli (signifying lightning). He is a huge beast, ten feet four inches high in the withers, and never yet beaten in the many combats he has engaged in. His mode of attack is to press his one small tusk into the head of his antagonist until he gets him down, and then to pommel him with his trunk till he is quite subdued. This hero, Bigli, is treated with all the respect due to his position, having a large bell hung round his neck, his mahouts dressed in special pink turbans, and two small elephants are employed to gather and bring in his forage. Ten buffaloes supply him daily with milk!

Besides the elephants, thousands of coolies are to be seen along the line of march, carrying the smaller loads. Their curious tanned Mongolian faces would require no making up to render them perfect in the characters of gnomes and imps at a London pantomime.

These cheerful little persons trot along with their loads in baskets on their backs, dressed in pointed hats and striped Chinese coats of various hues, and invariably followed by their own particular dog, the faithful companion of all their journeys. When on the march in this fashion, it is curious to observe one's own bed and other household goods tripping along through the jungles, every piece of furniture seeming to be walking along by itself; yet when we reach the end of our march we find them in their own appointed places looking as if they had never moved. The Maharanee and other ladies of the court travel in palanquins. A guard of honour,

preceded by a huge painted umbrella, denotes a lady of high degree. She has the advantage of us, for whereas we can see nothing but the gorgeous crimson cloth which hides her from public gaze, she has plenty of holes and crannies through which she peeps at the extraordinary English visitors, who prefer riding ponies and elephants to being carried along in luxury, preceded by a scarlet umbrella.

Early hours are the order of Indian camps, and we generally find ourselves at our next stage by nine o'clock. There all around us is a busy scene. Elephants passing to and fro, so laden with branches and grass for fodder that they look like moving haystacks ; tents being pitched, and narrow lean-to sheds of green boughs being ranged in long lines for the regiments. In one place one sees an excited group of coolies, followers, and servants waiting for their ration of rice, which is being doled out to them by an officer sitting in a cart, and great is the chattering and quarrelling, for each hopes to get a little more than his neighbour. It is needless to say that all the villages along the line of march have been thoroughly ransacked for food, and there is little doubt that the inhabitants would gladly dispense with the honour conferred on them by our visit, if they were consulted in the matter. In the middle of our campbreakfast, a man on a shaggy pony, who was sent on the day before to collect 'kubber' of tiger, comes galloping up, and, after a scene of much gesticulation, we learn that a very 'burra burra bagh' is on foot in the neighbourhood, and has killed the buffalo which was tied up for his benefit last night. We lose no time in climbing on our pad elephants and starting for the scene of action. We now find ourselves riding through sun-dried grass twelve feet high, and patches of copse-like jungle, which give a sporting look to what would otherwise be a monotonous country. Twenty miles away rises the solid barrier of the Himalayan mountains, whose snowclad peaks glisten brightly in the morning sun.

The method of bagging tiger in Nepal is peculiar to the country, and has this great advantage, that one is nearly always successful in shooting any tiger which has been marked down. Our friend who is quietly digesting the buffalo which he ate last night must be lying not very far from his kill. So we advance with some three hundred elephants in a line, and gradually close in upon him, shoulder to shoulder, in a huge ring, from which he has small chance of escape. As the circle contains a fairly large piece of jungle, a 'shikari' goes in on his elephant to ascertain exactly where the tiger is lying, and having found him at home, we-six guns, disposed on three howdah elephants-advance for the fray. Those who are accustomed to tiger-shooting, and think no more of bagging Master Stripes with a well-placed bullet than most do of knocking over a woodcock in a home covert, will not realise the anxious feeling one experiences when, for the very first time, one is perched on top of

an elephant, poking about in thick undergrowth, and expecting to see a tiger bound out of every bush! At last out he rushes with a mighty roar, and dashes round and round the ring, vainly trying to force his way through, whilst all the elephants trumpet loudly, with their trunks in the air, and their mahouts shriek and yell, so that one requires all one's nerve to fire and hit him under such alarming circumstances. But it is really a case of now or never, and I take a shot at a tigress as she is galloping by, and am lucky enough to hit her in the back with my first shot, and again in the shoulder with my second one, whereupon she charges straight at our elephant, but only to receive her death-blow from a second rifle in the howdah. One cannot help feeling sorry to see such a noble beast laid low, but so great are the rejoicings when she is brought triumphantly into camp, thrown across an elephant's back, that one's regrets are soon forgotten in the pride and delight of having shot one's first tiger. After this first day's sport, we continue to have good luck, especially that red-letter day when, quietly moving across country with a line of elephants, we manage to surround five tigers. On entering the ring we first only catch sight of one tigress, which is cleverly hit in the shoulder by Mrs. Durand; then, to our astonishment, tigers seem to crop up in all directions-one pair of green eyes glare from beneath the grass at one point, and then yet another pair a few yards on, so that finally we realise there are four big cubs, besides the tigress, galloping amongst our elephants in the ring. Such a howling, growling, snarling, shouting, trumpeting, and firing off of rifles can never have been heard before. Wounded and furious, the tigers take refuge in a small nullah, and there is some difficulty in finishing them off; but at last all five are ours, and piling them on to various elephants, we return to camp in the fading light, the sun sinking peacefully in a glow of crimson and gold behind the trees, whilst the moon rises in the east, and glints through the dark boughs as we wend our way home. By the camp fire are laid out our five tigers, and it is with some pride we admire their soft, golden winter coats, and discuss again and again, by the flickering light, the excitement of the day's sport.

EVA WYNDHAM QUIN.