out, But a good many of them were shot by the shikari, who, if he knows his business well, always gets many more species than a European, owing to his better knowledge of the notes, habits and feeding places of the birds; and to his greater ability to creep quietly about in the forest and also to find the birds when shot. Small birds falling into a dense mass of vegetation are often extremely difficult to find, unless they fall close to one, and it is always advisable to take a native with you to retrieve and climb for, and carry, what you shoot yourself.
When I returned to the plantation I found that Smithe was getting on with the people, but that the principal Nepalese Sirdar, who had authority over by far the greater part of the coolies on the plantation, and who received a pice per day for each one who turned out to muster, had been keeping a lot of buffaloes in the forest belonging to the estate, which was of great use to us in supplying fuel, building materials and grass for thatching. The buffaloes were doing much damage, and I told him I could not allow him to keep a dairy at our expense, as there was plenty of land further off. He grumbled a good deal and said he would leave the estate with his coolies, which would have seriously affected our labour supply. But I had acquired sufficient knowledge of the way to manage the Nepalese, and of the advantages which our coolies had in getting plenty of free land for their own cultivation, so I told Smithe to give the Sirdar a week to move his buffaloes. The man was a tall, active and plucky fellow, as most of these Nepalese Sirdars are, and thought he would see how much the new manager would stand. So one day, when Smithe was lying in his bed with a slight attack of fever, the Sirdar came to the bungalow and, entering his room, spoke in a very insolent manner. Smithe told him to clear out; as he did not go, Smithe jumped straight from his bed and knocked the man head over heels out of the room with one blow. The effect was excellent, both on the Sirdar and on the coolies generally, who realised that a new regime had com¬ menced.
These Nepalese coolies are a much more bold and independent race than the natives of the plains; they require to be treated fairly but firmly, but they will not stand any bullying. I remember a row on another plantation between a newly arrived assistant, a tall athletic Scotsman, who thought he could do what he liked with the coolies, and one of the head men, who was a noted athlete and wrestler. The two fought till neither of them could stand up any longer, but neither gained the victory. They then summoned each other for assault before the Deputy Com¬ missioner, who fined them ten rupees each. Another case, on my own garden a year or two later, illustrates the Nepalese character. A coolie, who had good reason to suspect that his wife was keeping company with another man, lay in wait for him one night. By Nepalese custom or law, which of course is not recognised in British territory, a husband finding his wife in flagrante delicto has the right to give one blow with his kukri, a heavy curved knife which every Nepalese carries in his waistband. When the lover came into the house, the husband waited a while, and then, creeping in, cut the man’s head off with one blow, which was supposed to have killed the wife at the same moment. Anyhow, the two
