A SHOOT IN AN INDIAN STATE 47 



In this neighbourhood there flourished an inter- 

 esting industry, unaltered since the days of Tubal 

 Cain. The sand of the river-bed had iron in it, and 

 I watched the whole process, within a few hours, 

 of heating the sand, melting and running off the 

 iron, and making it into an axe-head, which I have 

 now. One man, the smith, worked on the furnace 

 and forge, while his wife, a very pretty woman, 

 and another girl worked the bellows with their 

 feet, standing ; and hard work it looked. 



Food ran short, so one day we had a battue 

 of haryal (green pigeon) from our tree, firing 

 heavily. This was stupid in tiger jungle, but it 

 turned out to be the best thing that could have 

 been done, for it drove off the tiger from our 

 tributary streams, across the big river-bed and 

 into "The Nullah," where we got them. 



This nullah ran into a tributary of the big 

 river on the bank opposite to us. Where it 

 debouched it was only a narrow sandy stream- 

 bed. Higher up, the ground on either side of 

 it rising rapidly, it mounted in a succession of 

 rocky pools of water, amidst dense foliage and 

 undergrowth which were almost hidden from the 

 level of the surrounding ground. After some 

 quarter of a mile of a winding course of this 

 nature The Nullah rose again to ground level, 

 and, bifurcating, surrounded the slopes of a little 

 hill. On the upper side of this hill was a little 

 plateau about 150 yards square. This plateau 

 was really the end of a ridge, and from it a gap 

 led down into the big river. The ridge itself had 

 cliffs ten to thirty feet high on the river side and an 

 easy slope on The Nullah and tributary side. 



