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The gossips were as is nearly always the case quite wrong, for one of the first men to extend a friendly welcome to Aberigh-Mackay when he arrived at Lahore on the 13th August, 1869, to take up his appointment of "Manager of the Government Zoological Collection" was Mr. Lepel Griffin, then the Deputy-Commissioner of the City and District.
Aberigh-Mackay devoted his life in India to counteract the effects of purely literary instruction, which he persistently deprecated; and the last thirty years have undoubtedly witnessed many advances in the same direction, tending to the material progress of India.
Aberigh-Mackay indignantly repelled any such surmises, and laughed to scorn the idea that Sir Lepel could possibly entertain any revengeful thoughts of the kind that were anticipated by those who knew absolutely nothing of the old and existing intimacies of either of the two men concerned.
Colonel Henderson, so pleasantly cited by Aberigh-Mackay, and happily still alive, was himself a Madras Cavalry Officer, who served as Under-Secretary to the Foreign Department of the Government of India, as Resident in Kashmir and latterly in Mysore, and Superintendent of operations for the suppression of Thagi and Dakaiti.
Aberigh-Mackay early showed in his book "A Manual of Indian Sport," which, in addition to collecting in small compass lessons taught by many a noted Indian hunter, contains a great deal of original matter useful to every would-be sportsman, that he was well fitted to depict "The Shikarry" in correct and graphic manner and from actual personal knowledge.
It was to Lord Lytton's personal action in the face of would-be obsequious apathy in certain quarters that Aberigh-Mackay, the youngest on the list, was nominated a Fellow of the Calcutta University in 1880, an honour usually reserved for officials of high standing.
Aberigh-Mackay was a very keen all-round sportsman, and in the first weeks of December, 1880, had played at Mhow and Indore in the interesting polo matches between the 29th Regiment and the station of Indore, both matches being won by Indore, notwithstanding a good fight by the Regimental team, headed by Major Ruxton.
In 1881 they were not fated to meet, although Aberigh-Mackay had taken immediate steps to endeavour to do so, as soon as he became aware that a prevalent rumour was abroad to the effect that the Gryphon would to use a colloquialism now make it hot for him.
To paraphrase the language of the then recently appointed Agent to the Governor-General for Central India Sir Lepel Griffin in his first Administrative Report, that for 1880-1881, the happy effects of the training some of the leading Chiefs of Malwa received under Aberigh-Mackay were visible in the improved administration of their States.
A progress which, as profusely chronicled by the correspondents of the innumerable newspapers, British, Indian, and Foreign, attracted to India by the second Afghan War, is lightly, yet not unkindly, satirized by Aberigh-Mackay under the nom de plums of "Your Political Orphan." Who also in this article gave expression to the general impression of the day, that by entrusting Mr.
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