indomitable courage. Of course, the whole cat-tribe are very tenacious
of life, but that leopard had five bullets in him, and still he roared
and hissed and spat, though his life was ebbing from him fast. We must
have worked round in a circle nearer to the camp, for whilst we were
watching the leopard's furious fight the strains of the Maharajah's
orchestra practising "The Gondoliers," floated down-wind to us quite
clearly. I remember it well, for as we dismounted to look at the dead
beast the cornet solo, "Take a pair of sparkling eyes," began. There
was such a startling incongruity between an almost untrodden virgin
jungle in Assam, with a dead leopard lying in the foreground, and that
familiar strain of Sullivan's, so beloved of amateur tenors, that it
gave a curious sense of unreality to the whole scene.

This admirable orchestra made the evenings very pleasant. We put on
white ties and tail-coats every night for dinner in the open
_shamyanah_, where the Maharajah provided us with an excellent
European repast served on solid silver plates. As the endless
resources of this wonderful camp included an ice-making machine, he
also gave us iced champagne every evening. As an example of how
thorough the Maharajah was in his arrangements, he had brought three
of his _mallees_, or native gardeners, with him, their sole
function being to gather wild jungle-flowers daily, and to decorate
the tables and tents with them.

Neither the Maharajah nor his family ever touched any of the European
food, though, as they were not Hindoos, but belonged to the
Bramo-Somaj religion, there were no caste-laws to prevent their doing
so. Half-way through dinner the servants brought in large square
silver boxes, some of rice, others of various curries: hot curries,
dry curries, Ceylon curries, and green vegetable curries; these