clerks, a stable, out-offices, and servants' quarters; all these cost about 1,600 rupees. Houses for several officers and a good mess-house were built by a speculator, who, I believe, lost a great deal of money over them. In the month of November, just as my house. was finished, but not the mess-house, and while the mess was held in a large double-poled tent, a furious cyclone storm passed over Secunderabad. The mess tent had been pitched with the greatest care, all the "storm-ropes," i.e. those which are stretched from the tops of the poles, also those at the corners of the tent, were tied to long slabs of granite sunk two or three feet in the ground; but the fury of the storm was not to be denied, and the tent was blown down; the corner ropes and the storm-ropes were snapped like twine, and, the table having been partly laid for dinner, considerable damage was sustained by the mess equipage.

The country round Secunderabad is very beautiful. The soil is red, and the granite rocks are warm and ruddy in colour, contrasting finely with the bright green of the trees, and of the luxuriant grass also in the rainy season. The hills are fantastic in shape; rocks which are strewn, as it were, all over the smooth masses of bare granite, are piled on each other in wonderful confusion. Some hills exhibit, for the greater portion of their surface, a uniform smooth expanse of glistening rock, covered and built upon with huge split cubes and prisms heaped together. Other hills are surrounded, as to their base and sides, with innumerable weather-worn slabs and boulders, and show vast spires and jagged fragments of strangely-shaped rock on their summits. In the crevices of these hills grow an abundance of trees, mostly the feathery-leaved

BRITISH SOLDIERS' PIC-NIC.

81

tamarind; the strong high grass known as "rumnah' grass fills every level space, and stretches in bright sweeps all over the plains. There is much low jungle round the station, some of it thorns, and various other trees and shrubs; but the greatest growth is the "custard apple," which is an evergreen, growing to the height of six or eight feet, and which bears, in the cold season, a very refreshing fruit. It is well known that the abundance of this fruit, which is met with all over the Deccan, has often served greatly to alleviate the effects of seasons of scarcity and famine. The date-palm is also very plentiful; it fringes every watercourse, and exists in great patches, almost forests, in low, damp situations, especially along watercourses in the plains. The liquor drawn from it, commonly called "toddy" ("taree" or "neera" in the vernacular), is a source of great revenue to the Nizam's Government, but it is also the cause of much crime and much sickness among the British troops. It is innocent enough when newly drawn, cold and refreshing, from the tree in the early morning; but true toddy-drinkers do not value it until it has fermented, and has also been warmed up with "chillies " (red pepper pods), quicklime, &c., when it becomes intoxicating and very unwholesome.

The soldiers are very fond of making up little picnics, in parties of three or four, into the country round Secunderabad, and the great delicacy and piece de resistance at these parties is said to be a leg of mutton boiled in toddy, the liquor serving as broth also. Many conflicts, some of them ending fatally, have occurred in the toddy-groves between the soldiers and the toddy-drawers; altogether, the presence of the date-palm in such abundance is a great evil.

66

Toddy is likewise drawn from the tall palmyra palm, which is common throughout the Deccan. On all the roads leading to the city of Hyderabad long files of almost naked men are met with, each man trotting along, perspiring under the hot sun and begrimed with dust, with an immense foam-crowned chatty" of toddy on his head; and a much smaller one slung on his shoulder, also filled with the enticing liquor, which is his own private tap for refreshment on the toilsome journey of from ten to twenty miles to the city. Great skins also of toddy are carried to the same mart on "tattoos" (ponies) and buffaloes, which are daily to be seen pacing in long troops along the dusty roads.

I got out, for shooting, very little in this year. Now and then we had a morning at snipe, and on one occasion we made up a party to Kaissera, a village about fourteen miles north-east of Secunderabad, and which is a favourite place for shikar. The day we arrived at Kaissera, a tiger killed a bullock about a mile from our camp. Two bullocks employed in ploughing had been allowed to run in the jungle, still yoked together, while the ploughman was taking his midday "siesta." Very shortly afterwards, one, and that the leanest, of the two bullocks (a tiger always picks out the plumpest animal) dashed furiously into his owner's cattle-yard, with tail erect, and with the yoke trailing from his neck. It was immediately

known that the other and fatter animal had been killed by a tiger. The carcase was found half-way up a little jungly hill, whither it had been dragged; and some portion of it had been eaten. At sunset three of us sat over the body among the rocks, and the tiger came; but, unfortunately, not until the moon