178 INDIAN BIG GAME 



able to take advantage of the generosity of H.H. 

 the Maharajah of Travancore, who had given me 

 leave to shoot bison and an elephant, and to keep 

 the tusks. 



I got every help from the Dewan and was most 

 fortunate in enjoying the hospitality and help of 

 Col. and Mrs. D.-D. I borrowed everything from 

 them, and my shoot ran on very pleasant lines. 



For three weeks I worked the country round 

 my host's estate, on the Cardamum Hills and 

 round the Peryar Lake, and shot two sambhur, 

 one bison, and a really good tusker. 



The sambhur were both long and lucky shots. 



The bison was extinguished by the -470 at 

 sixty yards. An easy shot, for we got above him 

 and waited for him to come out into the open. 



I was after elephant for ten days' actual 

 hunting. In all the near treks, as well as on our 

 successful day, D.-D. accompanied me and helped 

 me more than I can say. 



There was a considerable amount of eter every- 

 where. This is a densely matted jungle of close- 

 growing young bamboo, twenty to thirty feet 

 high. A man can only get through it by the 

 elephant tracks. An elephant crashes through it 

 like butter ; and when one hears them on the 

 hillside a few yards above one, while groping 

 along the track oneself, one easily realizes that 

 this eter is the most serious proposition that 

 Indian big-game sport presents. One also often 

 finds lantana, a high matted shrub of the mari- 

 gold type, which, like the eter, is equally suited 

 to an elephant and vmsuited to a man. Only, in 

 the lantana there is blue sky overhead. In both 



