although there could be but one opinion of Scarlet continuing the lead, even if the delay had not taken place between Purple and White. After Scarlet had rounded the boat off Lawn Cottage, they came down to the Red House, rowed alongside the excellentlybuilt prize, when Williams jumped into her, and rowed off amidst deafening cheers, the band playing "See the conquering hero comes.' Among the betting gentry, Williams and Gregory were decidedly the favourites, from the period when it was first ascertained they were to row together, and after the first heat as high odds as 6 to 1 were offered on their winning the boat. Charley Brumwell's arms were much swollen at the conclusion of both heats. Rayden and Harris did more than was expected of them on this occasion, and, by their coming in so gallantly in the first heat, proved their stamina to be of the right sort. The winning men rowed in a beautiful boat, lately built by Honey and Archer, for an amateur. Mr. Kean's cele

brated canoe was paddled ahead of the match in excellent style, by Messrs. Easton and Storey, of Strand-lane, attired in uniform, and had a good effect. We never witnessed a match which gave greater satisfaction, or one more efficiently conducted throughout. It will, no doubt, be the precursor of many similar ones.

On Friday afternoon the new wherry, with the winning men in her, was placed in a four-wheeled van, and conveyed from Waterloo Bridge, preceded by a band of music, to the cottage of Mr. Kean, in the Regent's Park, when Williams and Gregory returned thanks for the patronage so liberally bestowed on them. Mr. Kean having again showered forth his bounty on the men, the whole party returned in high spirits, giving a call on their way back at the stage door of Old Drury, where three cheers were given in grand style. The boat at present remains within the railings of Waterloo Bridge, it not as yet being decided which of the men will take her.

SIR,

think

Having frequently observed in your valuable Magazine allusions to the impracticability of running down antelopes with greyhounds, and conceiving that any communication on the subject will be acceptable, I have determined to offer you a few lines for the O. S. M., should you them worthy of insertion. Mr. K——, well known as one of the best sportsmen on this side of India, during a residence of about three months at Point Calymere in the Tanjore Province (a place resorted to by many during the hot season), killed upwards of eighty antelopes with his dogs this year. Start not, gentle Editor, but check your incredulity whilst I give you the particulars, after which, should you still have any doubts on the subject, I don't mind betting you the amount of the profits of the "Magazine" (and those I take it are no trifle*) that he would do the same next year. Being much of the same opinion as most other people regarding the impossibility of catching them, he had, of course, never thought of slipping his dogs

If our subscribers would but pay their subscriptions.-ED.

at them, until one day, whilst coursing a fox, his dogs took after a buck antelope and pulled him down. This being repeated a second time, and thus finding that they were "to be had," he made a practice of going out after them; and the same success attending him during the time he remained there, the result in the end was, as I have stated above, more than eighty killed. Many (I should think one-third) were black bucks, and the remainder full-grown does, with a few fawns. His dogs, although of the best English blood, bred in the country, are not, of course, superior to those of many other gentlemen who have often experienced the fruitlessness of slipping them at these animals, nor is the nature of the ground unfavourable to them (the antelopes), for, although the soil is sandy, it is hard and covered with grass, and they scarcely leave a mark on it with their feet. The sport is upon the whole very pretty, being a complete race, tail on end, generally for about a couple of miles, though frequently they are caught almost immediately, and as frequently beat the dogs altogether; and, as there is no turning, any number of dogs may of course be

slipped. The inferiority in speed and bottom of the antelope at this particular place is only to be accounted for by the peculiar nature of the situation acting on their general condition. The plain on which they are caught is between the sea and a very deep jungle, and beyond that again is the broad salt swamp (as may be seen in any map of India) which runs along the whole part of the coast, lying east and west for about forty miles. The antelopes are found for a long distance up the small strip of dry land which lies between the sea and the swamp, and which, I believe, they never quit; and a very curious fact regarding them is that in these places there is not a single drop of fresh water to be found. So much is this the case, that the people who resort there for the purpose of carrying salt fish are obliged to take water with them from a very great distance. The only moisture which they can get must be, therefore, derived from the herbs which they eat, and they may in that respect be similar to rabbits, which never, I believe, require to drink. Notwithstanding this, their meat is very juicy and good to eat, and

SIR,

this perhaps is as marked a particular in which they differ from other antelopes as can be adduced, for in most parts of the country their flesh is generally black, dry, and scarcely eatable. In connection with this fact it may not be out of place to notice that one Strabo, speaking of the "Kolas" or ("Antelope Scithica "), says "it draws through its nostrils a great quantity of water, which it retains in its head, and which serves to supply it with moisture for many days in the desert." Concerning this fact, I don't pretend to offer and opinion. I can only say that I have seen many heads opened, but never found any water in them, and as probably Mr. Strabo never caught one himself, it may safely be conjectured that his informant was a humbugging of him. In conclusion, I would recommend readers any of your who may think it worth their while, when they have an opportunity, to try the antelopes which they found on the coast, which, like coast foxes, may be slower than their inland brethren.

Your obedient servant,

Tanjore, Dec. 17th, 1830.

Snipe shooting in India may generally be said to come in about the middle of May, and of all shooting it is universally allowed to be the best. In some parts, however, these birds make their appearance nearly a month before this time, as for instance in all rice countries like the Konkan, whence, as the hot season advances, and the rice fields become parched, they are driven to the more permanent bogs and tanks, for boring ground, where they will be

B.

found merely up to the time of the setting in of the Monsoon. At the latter end of the season they are rarely to be found in the Konkan, save in a few instances, and should any sportsman feel inclined to rusticate a short time, I shall mention one, and recommend him, for snipe shooting, to take up his quarters in the southern Konkan, at Malwa, within five miles of which place is Kundlegown, the name of a village well known to most of the Konkanney shots, its neighbouring marshes affording

the very quintessence of snipe shooting. The nature of the ground consists of well-flooded rice fields intersected by small canals or ditches, which are well filled by the sea at high tides only, but never so deep as to prevent the sportsman from crossing them, unless, indeed, he be of that dissoluble nature and so indifferent in the pursuit of game as to object occasionally to wading up to his middle after it, and even for such a description of shooter there is abundance of sport. The ground being plentifully supplied with springs of fresh water, and the sea flowing into the creeks, it consequently becomes the object of attraction to all aquatic game, and more particularly the boring

tribes (Snipes, &c.), which are seen earlier and depart later in the year from this place than any other country I ever visited. The distance of marsh extends about two miles. There is another extensive snipe ground about the same distance from Malwa, called Aari, nearly in the same direction as Kundlegown; both together, I should say, were capable of affording two days' first-rate sport per week, and throughout the season. These hints may not be unacceptable to those sportsmen who visit the Southern Konkan; and, trusting that those who avail themselves of what I have here stated may not be disappointed, I wish them every success, and remain yours, A SUBSCRIBER.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,

Towards the close of last month I had occasion, more from necessity than choice, to undertake a journey of some length; and although I saw nothing on my beat which can, from its sporting stamp, lay claim to insertion in your Magazine, you may yet, perhaps, find it convenient to set aside a column or two, if it be only for the making known that I did not travel with my eyes in my pocket; At last we discovered three reposing upon a ledge on the northfor I have a sad horror of your rubbish basket.

Aspera facetiæ, ubi nimis ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt, is a scrap of Latin which I have good cause to recollect, since it brought me many a sound flogging in my school-days; and it would not perhaps form a bad motto to my present letter. You can give a better translation of it than I can, so I shall proceed without further ado to my journey, the commencement of which gave

promise of subsequent misfortune; for, from some mismanagement, I found myself seven hours on the back of my old gelding, by which time, the " funny" being all expended, I reached K at "Mirk midnight," in that bungling sort of shuffle yclept "the Woolwich." This was the first place with any pretension to respectability in the map I had adopted-a muster of miserable thatched cottages, the smoke-dried inmates renowned only for their growth of grapes and cabbages. But I had contrived to hit the wrong time of the year, and found the grapes were sour; as for the cabbages, they are much like their neighbours, with the disadvantage of being five times as big.

K- is not more than a morning's breathe from Aurungabad, a famous populous city in days of yore, but falling fast to decay for want of a little rhino. On the road is a ruinous old castle on the top of a high hill, and I was curious to see it; but the good people

at the gate, observing "the screw" to carry a little less meat on his bones than he might have done, and to be a trifle painted about the flanks, refused me admittance without an order from Mr. Martin, of humanity-act notoriety. On second thoughts I was not sorry for it, for the folks inside might with the like condescension have objected to let me out again.

I journeyed hence, with all the dispatch my grunting quadruped was master of, to Nuggur; and it is with unfeigned sorrow I am compelled to record the utter extermination of the sport which once rendered that neighbourhood so congenial to all true lovers of such scenes. The far-famed supporters of artificial scent have, as it were, dropped off one by one, and no one has risen up to supply their place. I visited the kennel where my ear had oft been greeted by the enchanting music of a well-disciplined pack, but, alas! denuded brats ran riot in its broad area, and sullen pestilential curs grinned at my unwelcome approach. The late spirited owner has selected a new "line of country" and a new "cover," and the Priory alone remains, as the last apple on a tree, to remind us of the days gone by.

During my sojourn here I had occasion to pass the filthy Den in which the Pot Hunters conceal their four-footed accomplices in iniquity, and was greatly surprised to observe a display of the handicraft of some country chip, in the shape of a huge gallows right opposite the doorway, with a "spick and span new hempen twist dancing at the extremity, and altogether altogether looking vastly mischievous and foreboding. Moreover, from the inner recesses of the den did proceed the most fearful howls and deafening clamour. Indeed,

thought I, these gentlemen have at last come to a sense of their enormities, and are certainly preparing to treat Crooked Pins to a Tyburn tippet, after he has been worried into fits. But no such luck, for in a little the door opened, and a stiff unyielding bandy-legged devil of a dog was shown out by a yard of tow, and the judicious application of a little argumentum baculinum, by which we understand club law" no compulsion, only you must "; and malgré his very strenuous and natural endeavours to unhand himself, each and all of which were backed by a little more of the "Tommy," he was then and there tucked up with good five feet of " empty space to interdict his acquaintance with mother earth, and as he dangled and kicked the "rabblement" chuckled and giggled, and so did I too, for the business from first to last was enough to have co vulsed a mute. The unhappy beast had to thank his good nose, and better education for this disastrous exit, for I find they hang everything that prefers using its nostrils to its eyes, being a less certain and less expeditious mode of turning work out of hand. The job had put them all in prime spirits, and while some extolled the haltered inmate of the kennel, as having made a rare hang," others lamented that they could not treat Nosing Tom to a new neckcloth, and many and various were the opinions manifested as to who he might be. They little thought that he was a spectator of their proceedings, or that their exploits were to grace the forthcoming Number of your Magazine; but so it is, Sir, and the truth will creep out, that, despite of my remonstrance, the Pot Hunters are at their old tricks, and Crooked Pins drives his craft as heretofore, for

66