174 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



one man by kicking him, after a long chase down 

 a path ; he had also broken up the greater part 

 of a man, cart, and bullocks complete, and was 

 now outlawed. A price of 500 Rs. was on his 

 head ; so I might, and naturally did, keep the 

 tusks when I shot him. 



I had studied live elephants in the Mysore 

 elephant stables for hours, from every aspect, as 

 well as a skull in the Zoo there, and I had had 

 considerable recent practice with the -470 rifle. 



My camp was at a pleasant bungalow, close to 

 which lived Mr. Channiga-Raya, the forest ranger, 

 a well-educated Mysore gentleman, to whose help 

 and society I owe much. 



The rogue lived three miles from the bungalow 

 in a patch of jungle a few miles square, bounded 

 by hills on two sides ; the Cubbany, a tributary 

 of the Cauvery, made a third, and a fire-line the 

 fourth side. This last was his favourite haunt. 



The road to the jungle ran through young 

 ragi fields like green wheat, with meadows of 

 black clover-like grass in which fat cattle grazed. 

 Everywhere were the olive and grey tints which, 

 with the sky, make the typical blue Mysore day. 



The jungle itself consisted of big trees and 

 bamboos, with, for the most part, a dense under- 

 growth of grass or young bamboo, which some- 

 times grew fifteen or twenty feet high. Here and 

 there were lower clearings, with a hundred yards 

 of view, but vision was generally much more re- 

 stricted. Beautiful aisles of bamboo clumps were 

 occasionally to be met with, growing apart like 

 the pillars of a cathedral ; the delicate tracery of 

 their boughs overhead was like the arched groin 



