Cricket Tour, India

The " Grangepark " has the usual wireless equipment and directional finding apparatus for use in foggy and obscure weather.

At the time of her " adoption " she was on a voyage from Rotterdam to Saigon, in French Indo-China, and was actually in the Red Sea. This voyage lasted from January 14th to February 19th—a period of thirty-seven days. At the time of writing she is at Saigon loading rice for the Mediterranean, though we do not know yet for which port. A packet of letters from any boys who wished to write was forwarded in February, but, of course, there has not been time for replies to be received. Enquiries were sent to the Master, Captain W. W. Rickard, to the First and Second Officers, the Chief Engineer and the Wireless Operator, and replies are being anxiously awaited. We have hopes, too, that some day the " Grangepark " will come to one of the Humber ports, so that we may have a chance of meeting our correspondents and of seeing the ship herself.

CRICKET TOUR IN INDIA.

From the day on which Lord Tennyson's team left England, on October 13th, the trip was full of interest. The voyage was like all voyages apparently are—a succession of deck-games and competitions during the day, while the entertainments at night were varied with dancing, cinemas, race-meetings, scavenger hunts, etc.

As we drew into Ballard Pier, Bombay, on October 25th, the first thing to strike us was the complete inability of the ordinary Indian to do anything without shouting and making a terrific noise. These fellows, known as " Coolies," look very thin and weak, but appear to have no difficulty in carrying a large cabin trunk on the head. The fact that the Indian is a great lover of noise was emphasised when we got into cars to go to the hotel. We soon realised that brakes to the driver were a secondary consideration, his sole idea was to blow the horn continually.

During our tour we visited many native states ; this was the most interesting and on the whole the most enjoyable experience of the tour, because there was always entertainment out the ordinary planned for us. We visited Baroda, Jannagar, Portsander and Patiala. At these places one sees India as it really is, and their hospitality is simply marvellous.

Baroda was our first match of the trip, and, unfortunately, a very short one, because it didn't allow any time to do all the things our host had hoped to do for us—this was chiefly to be shoots of various kinds. However, we did see a simply amazing display of wealth, including such things as the ordinary sized cannon of olden days in solid gold. Also at his palace he had many jewels, including one necklace which alone was worth £750,000. One evening while in Baroda we were entertained by a wonderful collection of performing parrots, who did the most amazing things.

Our next visit to a native state was to Jannagar as the guests of the Jam Saheb, who, as all keen cricketers know, is the nephew of the great Ranji. The present Jam Saheb, although not such a great performer, is very keen, and is doing a great deal for Indian Cricket. Here our host was very anxious to give us shooting of every description in the small time we had there. Actually, practically everything we did was done in one hectic day. Following a banquet, which finished well after midnight, we rose at 4-30, and after a quick breakfast motored about 40 miles, arriving at our destination just as dawn broke. We were now to start buck shooting, which is a terrific thrill. In this case one shoots from a car, and the ground is on the whole quite flat. The cars are driven about until an animal is seen, then the chase begins. These animals can run at anything up to 50 m.p.h., so one can imagine the thrill of chasing them over roughish ground sometimes approaching 60 m.p.h., yet at the same time trying to steady onself for a shot, and we soon discovered it was not a very easy task to hit them. Unfortunately we had to be back by 10-30 to play Cricket. However, as we were soon defeated, play ended about 3 p.m., and immediately we set off for about a 70 mile drive to a house owned by our host in the hills. That night we were all fortunate enough to see a panther. Lord Tennyson was the one to whom the honour was given of having the shot. Unfortunately his shot went wide, and how he missed remained a source of worry to him for many days to follow.

Our trip to Portsander was only for one night, being a break in our journey from Jannagar to Bombay.

The next and last native state we visited was that of the Rajah of Patiala. It was with great regret that we learned of his death shortly after our return. He was also a great lover of Cricket, and together with the Jam Saheb has probably done more for Indian Cricket than anybody. However, the Tuvraj of Patiala, who succeeds him will, I think, be extremely popular, for he is also a keen cricketer, and has successfully represented India on several occasions. Here we

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also met with great hospitality, and had fresh experiences, e.g., one day we rode to the Cricket Ground on elephants and returned on camels. It is such little things which being out of the ordinary live in one's memory. Also here we had our only elephant shoot of the trip. Six elephants were placed about 100 yards apart with beaters in between plodding through the jungle. We rode on the elephants and just shot at anything that popped up—chiefly wild pig, partridge, rabbits and buck. There is seating accommodation for four on the elephant in a small carriage, the two in the front seat being armed—one with a shot gun and the other with a rifle.

To say we did not enjoy ourselves at other places apart from these would be quite untrue. Wherever we went the Europeans were simply marvellous, and we were invited to one continual stream of parties. The other places which appealed to us most were Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Lahore. In these places we remained for longer periods than the customary two or three days : thus we made friends there and also we got relief from travelling for a short time.

Travelling was undoubtedly the great drawback of the trip, with journeys of 48 hours or so, and these not being in the greatest of comfort were rather apt to try one's nerves. The actual carriages were quite good, being a fourberth sleeper, each with its own small bath-room. There is only one corridor train in India, known as " The Deccan Queen," which runs from Bombay to Poona. What really made the travelling so bad was the sand and dirt which penetrated the carriages and the lack of food which was fit to eat, also the slowness of the trains, which crawl along and stop regularly about every half hour.

As regards the Cricket, well, we managed to win the unofficial test matches by 3-2, these being four-day matches. As cricketers, the Indians are extremely good when they are on top, but they do seem to give up the ghost rather early if things are going badly. They have, however, some very good players out there, and if only they could patch up their religious quarrels and other petty differences they would undoubtedly be a much more difficult proposition to tackle.

We sailed from Bombay on February 19th, after spending an extremely enjoyable and interesting four months in India. We returned by the same ship, the " Viceroy of India," and both were extremely pleasant voyages with calls at Marseilles and Port Said only going out, and Aden, Port Suez, Port Said, Malta and Marseilles