In Times of Peril | Page 5

early for India, where every one is up and about soon after
daylight--the morning hours up to eight o'clock being the most pleasant
of the whole day.
Kate and Rose were up, and all had had "_chota hazaree_" (little

breakfast) by half-past six, and were ready when Captain Dunlop drew
up in his buggy--a conveyance which will only hold two. The dog-cart
was already at the door, and the whole party were soon in motion. On
the road they passed several of their friends, for every one was going
out to the hunt, and merry greetings were exchanged.
The scenery round Sandynugghur resembles that which is common to
all the great plains of India watered by the Ganges and Jumna. The
country is for the most part perfectly flat, and cut up into little fields,
divided by shallow ditches. Here and there nullahs, or deep
watercourses, with tortuous channels and perpendicular sides, wind
through the fields to the nearest stream. These nullahs constitute the
great danger of hunting in the country. In the fields men may be noticed,
in the scantiest of attire, working with hoes among their springing crops;
women, wrapped up in the dark blue calico cloth which forms their
ordinary costume, are working as hard as the men. Villages are
scattered about, generally close to groves of trees. The huts are built of
mud; most of them are flat-topped, but some are thatched with rushes.
Rising above the villages is the mosque, where the population are
Mohammedan, built of mud like the houses, but whitewashed and
bright. The Hindoo villages generally, but not always, have their
temples. The vegetation of the great plains of India is not tropical,
according to the ideas of tropical vegetation gathered from British
hothouses. There are a few palms and many bananas with their wide
leaves, but the groves are composed of sturdy trees, whose appearance
at a distance differs in no way from that of ordinary English forest trees.
Viewed closer, the banian with its many stems is indeed a vegetable
wonder; but, were it not for the villages and natives, a traveler might
journey for very many miles across the plains of India without seeing
anything which would specially remind him that he was out of
England.
There were a considerable number of traps assembled when Major
Warrener drew up, and some eight or ten gentlemen on horseback, each
carrying a boar-spear--a weapon not unlike the lance of an English
cavalryman, but shorter in the handle. The riders were mostly dressed
in coats of the Norfolk jacket type, and knee-breeches with thick gaiters.

The material of their clothes was a coarse but very strong cloth of
native make, gray or brown in color. Some wore round hats and forage
caps with puggarees twisted round them.
A chorus of greeting saluted the party as they drove up.
"Well, young ladies," the colonel said, "so you have come out to see the
death of the boar,
"'The boar, the boar, the mighty boar,'
as the song says? So you are not going to take a spear to-day, major?
Think it's time to leave it to the youngsters, eh?"
"Where are the wild boars, Mrs. Renwick?" Kate asked of the colonel's
wife.
"Pig, my dear; we always call them pig when we speak of them
together, though we talk of the father of the family as the boar. Do you
see that clump of long grass and jungle right across the plain? That's
where they are. They have been watched all night. They went out to
feed before daybreak and have just gone back again. Do you think we
are in the best place for seeing the sport, Major Warrener?"
"I think, Mrs. Renwick, that if you leave your trap and go up to the top
of that knoll, two hundred yards to the right, you will get a really good
view of the plain."
Mrs. Renwick alighted from the dog-cart in which the colonel had
driven her, and the whole party, following her example, walked in a
laughing group to the spot which Major Warrener had indicated, and
which was pronounced as just the place. The syces stood at the heads of
the horses, and those who were going to take part in the sport cantered
off toward the spot where the pigs were lurking, making, however, a
wide _détour_ so as to approach it from the other side, as it was desired
to drive them across the plain. At some distance behind the clump were
stationed a number of natives, with a variety of mongrel village curs.
When they saw the horsemen approach they came up and prepared to

enter the jungle to drive out the pigs.
The horsemen took up their position on either side of the patch in
readiness to start as