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146 than a black-beetle, and that I might have seen at home. The Santals are very keen shikaris, and go regularly to hunt armed with bows and arrows and a few guns.

One morning I watched them start. With them was a youth home on holiday from a situation in Calcutta—I liked his idea of a shooting costume. He wore a pair of bright blue socks and yellow shoes, a pink shirt worn over a dhoti, and over that a well-cut tweed coat (evidently an old one of his master's), a high linen collar, but no tie, a straw hat and enormous blue spectacles. The last-named were evidently worn more for effect than by order of the oculist, for the youth removed them when the time came to use his gun.

27th. home mail has just come in. I like to be in the verandah to see the dâk-runner bring in the letters. I hear him long before I see him, for he carries a stick with jingling bells at the end to frighten away animals as he comes through the jungle. Mine was a particularly nice mail to-day—good news from everyone. You have no idea how out here one loves to get letters, and how one