The Hunting Grounds of the Old World By the Old
Shekarry (Long- man.)—Why the Old World, seeing that these adventures are entirely confined to Asia? We must not, however, quarrel with a name, when the book which it introduces is so good, and has reached a third edition. A thorough sportsman of immense experience in wild countries has detailed some of his adventures in an easy, natural, but still sparkling style, a style which has on the reader the effect of a breeze. He has an eye for a human being as well as an animal, and can describe a jangle man at least as well as a tiger or an elephant. His stories leave on us the impression of being substantially true, and even if in reality a little coloured, are none the less instructive and amusing. The Shekarry has, like most hunters, a keen eye for scenery, and the following is but one among a thousand bits which will be recognized by every traveller in the Noilgherries, and which are never long. He has heard of a herd of elephants, and is moving down towards them :—" The moon was favour- able, being at its zenith as wo passed the village of Coonoor, making the night clear as day, and allowing us to enjoy the magnificent scenery of the celebrated Coonoor Pass, where fern flowers and grasses creep, fantastically tangled,' amid gigantic forest trees, and the graceful bamboo contrasts with the darker foliage of the wild fig, and thickets of rhododendron and wild camellias. Tho wave-like looking sea of deep forest was diversified with white lichen-covered precipices, and darkly- frowning crags of every imaginable form and shape, some thousands of feet in height, which seemed to shake their fern-fringed foreheads at the passing traveller as he followed the winding road leading down the ravine, every bend of which, like a turn of the kaleidoscope, revealed something new and pleasing to the eye. "
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