he pointed to where the leopard had sprung, nearly to the tent door, before disappearing among the bushes. I tried long to sight him crouched in the shadow, but failed to see him. To draw him out, I tied a white kid on a bank to a bush, and waited with the rifle ready. It was now getting dark, but I saw, as I thought, the kid spring up the bank, only the long tail was not that of a kid. It was too dark to distinguish anything but the form of some animal, so I fired at the beast and saw it spring away into the bushes untouched; but in the instant it had killed the kid, which I examined and found dead. There was a little native chappar, where a native was cooking his evening meal and a small fire burning. In this I crouched, and got a better view of the white kid lying about six yards off. Presently a dark object seemed to glide across the white kid, and it had the round form of a leopard's head, crouching almost flat; the long body could just be made out. Taking a bit of burning charcoal, I placed it on the rifle end to act as a front sight, and found no difficulty in placing it where the beast's shoulder should be, and fired. The result was some very ugly grunts and roars, and a scrimmage could be heard among the bushes on the bank, then some kicks and groans which sounded like the end. My bearer got a lanthorn, hung from a long bamboo, and lowered it over the spot, among rocks and jungle, while I pointed steadily with the rifle to make sure he should not be alive and able to spring; but no movement came, and at last we could see the spots and form of a fine leopard lying dead, and no mistake, among the rocks. This was a great joy to the syces and camp followers, who had for several nights been annoyed by this leopard prowling round. Several times the horses had jumped and broken their heel-ropes in the night. The goats and sheep had had a rough time, two of them

having disappeared, and the poor dogs had been unable to sleep for watching. The khansamah, when cooking by his fire, had seen a big leopard lying on a rock just above him, outlined against the sunset sky. This was a fairsized leopard, or panther it might be called, and its skin was a beautiful one.

Shortly after that, the villagers reported having lost goats and calves in a valley not far off, where was much scrub jungle, rocks, and a river of clear green water flowing by, with deep pools and khair-trees on the flat. They brought word about two o'clock one day that a buffalo calf had just been killed, and its blood sucked from the neck by a tiger or a panther. Going at once, I climbed into the fork of a khair-tree, the only one available, just three yards above the calf, and sat there from three till six, rifle to shoulder pointed at the calf. It was the cold season, and not too hot. Dressed in khaki-coloured jacket and preserving an immovable attitude, I hoped to remain unobserved, as leopards do not often look up into trees. The wind, gently passing up the valley, as it always does in the afternoon, would carry the scent clean away. It was tiresome work sitting still, but I had secured a firm position by placing a few cross boughs in the fork. The sun sank behind the hill, the breeze fell to a calm, and silence reigned. The birds, having finished their screeching and flying round, were thinking of going to roost; some jungle fowl were running through the tufts of long grass on the sand by the black stems of the feathery acacia-trees. There sounded through the stillness a hollow 'Ooh, ooh' from the hillside across the river, whence came the continuous musical murmurings of the stream flowing among rocks. A second similar call, somewhat louder, but in the opposite direction. The sound was like a ventriloquist's voice, and seemed to come

out of the air. It announced, surely, the coming of the wily depredator, whatever he might be. It must be a large animal to kill a buffalo calf. My tortures of sitting motionless, with strain on the eyes and ears, soon came to a climax, and a very large panther walked coolly up to its prey with the usual cat-like, gliding stride. As I slightly turned the rifle to point it, the panther's wideopen yellow eyes caught the motion, and he stared for an instant straight in my face, at the same instant raising his lips and showing his white teeth in a fierce snarl. But at the same moment I covered him between the eyes, and let off both barrels. The bullets both entered fair into his brain, and he fell with the usual hollow roar. This was a very fine male panther, measuring 8 feet, and very fat and heavy.

I often spent several hours of day or night sitting over a kill, with more or less success. Most frequently in the dark the leopard or tiger would come and eat some of the carcase; one heard the bones crunching, but could see nothing. I fired at the sound, sometimes getting nothing, or perhaps wounding only; sometimes getting a skin. On one occasion a leopard came across the muzzle of the rifle about one yard off. There was only a thick clump of bushes to sit in. The bullet went clean through the leopard, and he fought and roared on the ground, much too close to the bush for one's pleasure; but he got up and slunk away, and died in an adjoining cave. This was in the night. Once I was with a very enthusiastic R.E. lieutenant, who was eager for blood. A tiger had killed two cows, and we tossed up for places to sit. The tiger came in broad daylight, and I saw the yellow hide and the stripes through some bamboos, moving slowly across. He did not, however, come to either of the kills, and we found afterwards that there was a third cow lying fifty

yards further off, where he spent an hour eating and tearing the meat off the haunch of his victim, while we tore our hair with disappointment at not getting a shot.

It is surprising what numbers and varieties of beasts, birds, and reptiles frequent these various regions. To describe them all is the work of a naturalist, but to wanderers in the forest new plants and animals are an endless source of interest. Of birds I may mention the lammergeier, which sails round and round the tops and faces of the cliffs on extended wing, ever soaring without apparent motion of its wings, which measure 10 feet from tip to tip. I have often watched half a dozen, perhaps, of these great eagles passing quite close to the cliff where I stood, so close that I could see the bright big eyes, the great, powerful hooked bill, the rufous, tawny markings on the yellow feathers, the crested head, and the cruel talons gathered up under the breast.

CHAPTER XVI

FORESTS OF THE BHABAR AND FOOT-HILLS

THE great sal forest covers the dry hot regions of the foot-hills and the Bhabar, which extends in a belt of from ten to twenty miles wide the entire length of India, from the Punjab, where it is less developed, right away through the North-West Provinces, Oudh, and Bengal to Assam and the Brahmaputra, clothing with its dark, dense foliage the whole of the foot-hills up to 3,000 or 4,000 feet. It is probably the most extensive forest of one particular tree in the world. It grows also- or rather grew, for the woodman's axe has laid low all the fine big timberin portions of the Central Provinces, Nagpur, and the Mysore hills and Tenasserim. Sal* has always been considered in India the most valuable of timbers, even stronger and heavier than teak. It is a dark-brown, closegrained, hard wood, with straight interlaced fibre. It is used in the gun-carriage factories for the limbers, and is considered the strongest and most durable timber. It had been so extensively used for building purposes, carpenters' work, and latterly for sleepers, that the great trees which abounded all through the forests had disappeared, and nothing remained but saplings and young trees, all growing as close together as possible, their straight black stems and shiny green heads forming a complete thicket. Occasionally, in the inaccessible places

* Shorea robusta according to Roxburgh, also Vatica robusta.