Back to camp now, to bathe and breakfast.  A long line of dust marks the track from the course, for the sun is now high in the heavens, the lake is rippling in placid beauty under a gentle breeze, and the long lines of natives, as well as vehicles of all sorts, form a quaint but picturesque sight.  After breakfast calls are made upon all the camps and bungalows round the station.  Croquet, badminton, and other games go on until dinner-time.  I could linger lovingly over a camp dinner; the rare dishes, the sparkling conversation, the racy anecdote, and the general jollity and brotherly feeling; but we must all dress for the ball, and so about 9 P.M. the buggies are again in requisition for the ball room—­the fine, large, central apartment in the Planters’ club.

The walls are festooned with flowers, gay curtains, flags, and cloths.  The floor is shining like silver, and as polished as a mirror.  The band strikes up the Blue Danube waltz, and amid the usual bustle, flirtation, scandal, whispering, glancing, dancing, tripping, sipping, and hand-squeezing, the ball goes gaily on till the stewards announce supper.  At this—­to the wall-flowers—­welcome announcement, we adjourn from the heated ball-room to the cool arbour-like supper tent, where every delicacy that can charm the eye or tempt the appetite is spread out.

Next morning early we are out with the hounds, and enjoy a rattling burst round by the racecourse, where the horses are at exercise.  Perchance we have heard of a boar in the sugar-cane, and away we go with beaters to rouse the grisly monster from his lair.  In the afternoon there is hockey on horseback, or volunteer drill, with our gallant adjutant putting us through our evolutions.  In the evening there is the usual drive, dinner, music, and the ordinary, and so the meet goes on.  A constant succession of gaieties keeps everyone alive, till the time arrives for a return to our respective factories, and another year’s hard work.

[1] In such a limited society every peculiarity is noted; all our
    antecedents are known; personal predilections and little foibles
    of character are marked; eccentricities are watched, and no one,
    let him be as uninteresting as a miller’s pig, is allowed to
    escape observation and remark.  Some little peculiarity is hit
    upon, and a strange but often very happily expressive nickname
    stamps one’s individuality and photographs him with a word.

CHAPTER IX.

Pig-sticking in India.—­Varieties of boar.—­Their size and height.  —­Ingenious mode of capture by the natives,—­The ‘Batan’ or buffalo herd.—­Pigs charging.—­Their courage and ferocity.—­Destruction of game.—­A close season for game.