"On our return from the beast fight a breakfast awaited us at the royal palace; and the white tablecloth being removed, quails, trained for the purpose, were placed upon the green cloth, and fought most gamely, after the manner of the English cockpit. This is an amusement much in fashion among the natives of rank, and they bet large sums on their birds, as they lounge luxuriously round, smoking their houkahs.
Hunting with Leopards.
"The leopards are each accommodated with a flat-topped cart, without sides, drawn by two bullocks, and each animal has two attendants. They are loosely bound by a collar and rope to the back of the vehicle, and are also held by the keeper by a strap round the loins. A leathern hood covers their eyes. The antelopes being excessively timid and wild, the best way to enjoy the sport is to sit on the cart alongside the driver; for the vehicle being built like the hackeries of the peasants, to the sight of which the deer are accustomed, it is not difficult, by skilful management, to approach within two hundred yards of the game. On this occasion we had three chetahs in the field, and we proceeded towards the spot where the herd had been seen, in a line, with an interval of about one hundred yards between each cart. On emerging from a cotton-field, we came in sight of four antelopes, and my driver managed to get within one hundred yards of them ere they took alarm. The chetah was quickly unhooded, and loosed from his bonds; and as soon as he viewed the deer he dropped quietly off the cart, on the opposite side to that on which they stood, and approached them at a slow, crouching canter, masking himself by every bush and inequality of ground which lay in in his way. As soon, however, as they began to show alarm, he quickened his pace, and was in the midst of the herd in a few bounds.
"He singled out a doe, and ran it close for about two hundred yards, when he reached it with a blow of his paw, rolled it over, and in an instant was sucking the life-blood from its throat.
"One of the other chetahs was slipped at the same time, but after making four or five desperate bounds, by which he nearly reached his prey, suddenly gave up the pursuit, and came growling sulkily back to his cart.
"As soon as the deer is pulled down, a keeper runs up, hoods the chetah cuts the victim's throat, and receiving some of the blood in a wooden ladle, thrusts it under the leopard's nose. The antelope is then dragged away, and placed in a receptacle under the hackery, whilst the chetah is rewarded with a leg for his pains."[2]
An Alligator in the Ganges.
"A beautiful specimen of an alligator's head was here given by Mr. Alexander to Lord Combermere. He was rather a distinguished monster, having carried off at different occasions, six or eight brace of men from an indigo factory in the neighbourhood. A native, who had long laid wait for him, at length succeeded in slaying him with poisoned arrows. One of these notoriously ghaut-frequenting alligators is well nigh as rich a prize to the poor native who is fortunate enough to capture him, as a Spanish galleon is to a British frigate; for on ripping open his stomach, and over-hauling its freight, it is not unfrequently found to contain 'a choice assortment'—as the Calcutta advertisers have it—of gold, silver, or brass bangles and anklets, which have not been so expeditiously digested as their fair owners, victims of the monster's voracity. A little fat Brahminee child, 'farci an ris,' must be a tempting and tender bonne bouche to these river gourmands. Horrific legends such as the above, together with a great deal of valuable advice on the subject, were quite thrown away upon me; for ninety degrees of Fahrenheit, and the enticing blueness of the water generally betrayed me into a plunge every evening during my Gangetic voyage."
Nocturnal Bathing.
"On the occasion of a grand nocturnal bathing ceremony, held at the great tank called the Indra Damân, I went with a party of three or four others to witness the spectacle. The walls surrounding the pool and a cluster of picturesque pavilions in its centre were brilliantly lighted up with hundreds of cheraugs, or small oil-lamps, casting a flickering lustre upon the heads and shoulders of about five hundred men, women, and children, who were ducking and praying, à corps perdu, in the water. As I glanced over the figures nearest to me, I discovered floating among the indifferent bathers two dead bodies, which had either been drowned in the confusion, or had purposely come to die on the edge of the sacred tank; the cool and apathetic survivors taking not the slightest notice of their soulless neighbours."