forthwith, and for the remainder of the day ascended no other. It has to be added that, as far as tigers were concerned, no machan or substitute therefor was required on that occasion, for from first to last no tiger made an appearance to any of us.

And now, reluctantly enough, I bring these reminiscences to a close. It required something of an effort to commence my narrative. It calls for a greater effort to write "Finis," to drop the curtain and put out the lights. Memories that had long slumbered have been awakened, and will not at once be lulled to rest again. Delights that had been put away as unattainable have returned to my imagination as temptations difficult of resistance. The good sport and the good-fellowship that went with my shikar of thirty years challenge me to renew that past and live the old life again. What a good time it was! What good fellows were they who helped to make it so! But to talk of living that life again-that way madness lies.

343

L'ENVOI.

T is mid-winter,-that is to
say,
it is the 15th July,
-and as I am writing
these lines in Tasmania,
my statement that it
is mid-winter is locally
accurate to the letter.
It is mid-winter, then,
inasmuch as it is mid-
dlewards of Tasmania's

apology for a hyper

borean season, and look

ing out from my study

window, my eye ranges over a garden where roses, geraniums, chrysanthemums, nasturtiums, and other flowers are all abloom: looking beyond these witnesses as to the good character of Tasmania's climate, down the sloping paddocks that are bounded by a willow-fringed beck, and beyond to the broad waters of the Derwent, I see a sunlit river gay with a score of centreboard yachts; and looking farther yet

afield, I find the scene closed in by hills of varied form that, tier after tier, exhibit tricks of light and shade that would delight the artist and drive the prosiest writer into poetry.

This, by the way, is written in Hobart, where my home is not, and the room that I call my study is not a study any more than it is mine, except temporarily. I am in Hobart, and there fronting me is a scene that has more of summer than winter in it. But I am, nevertheless, within sight of snow, if I choose to go round to the back of the house, for I live under the shadow of Mount Wellington, that towers over 4000 feet above the sea-level, and bears upon its crest and upper slopes a snow mantle that, if the sun be less conspicuous than usual, lasts more or less from June to August. A most picturesque mountain is this from every point of view, as is Hobart the most beautifully situated city of the many cities that I have seen in three quarters of the world. Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine empire, I know only by repute, and I am therefore unable to compare the two cities that are mirrored in the Bosphorus and Derwent respectively. But I can speak from personal observation of Delhi, Lucknow, Cairo, Rome, Naples, Florence, Moscow, and St Petersburg,-all more or less famous for their beauty,-and say without hesitation that Hobart, because of its magnificent environment, eclipses them all.

Unique as are its physical charms and climate,

Hobart possesses social and other advantages that should make it peculiarly attractive to retired Anglo-Indians and others of small independent means who desire to live economically and yet enjoy the pleasures of society and improving influences of civilisation; and for him who would live a retired life among his books or flowers there is ample choice in the country of places upon which nature has showered her gifts with prodigal hand, access whereto has been made easy by rail or road, and everywhere he shall find the most perfect temperate climate in the world, cheap living, and a kindly people; and in some parts he will find also such sport as I shall proceed to speak of.

Before I decided finally to settle in Tasmania I made inquiry as to its merits as a game country; and from men who had been there, or had belonged to regiments quartered in Hobart when that place was an Imperial garrison, I gathered satisfactory information as to Tasmanian possibilities in the matters of shooting and hunting. This information was decidedly delusive in one respect I was told that men of the Hobart garrison had been wont to go out hither and thither to shoot snipe, and had habitually made bags of twenty to thirty couple, and I promised myself that I would do likewise.

Now, having been eleven years in Tasmania, I am in a position to state that I have not only never shot one, but that I have not seen one

alive. I have seen three defunct snipe, these having been brought into the railway carriage I occupied by a sportsman who got in at the Epping roadside station, but never a living one. Not but what there are some snipe in the colony from September to the end of November, but they come in much smaller numbers than they used to, and come to fewer feeding-grounds. I have only just discovered one or two places where they may be looked for in September next, and I have made my arrangements to be at those places at the right time.

On one occasion only have I gone forth to shoot snipe in Tasmania, and then I went under the most favourable conditions except as to season. I was the guest of Sydney Page, then owner of the Stonehenge property, and a snipe-swamp was among his possessions. He had religiously preserved this for the admirable sportsman Charles Agnew, the Squire of Waverley (owner and rider of some of Tasmania's best racers); but Agnew had not come, and the cream of the year's shooting was to be mine! Now, I thought, as we started for the ground, I am about to see the swift - flighted long - bills rise to right and left, singly, doubly, and in wisps. I imagined the air thick with snipe, and my only doubt was that we were not sufficiently provided with cartridges. We reached the swamp that should have been, and found it dry and caked brickwise, and we flushed no living creature out of it but a harmless snake.