CHAPTER XI 



THE JUNGLES OF SOUTHERN INDIA 



The jungles of Southern India — Description of country — Gotacamund — 

 The Goty Hunt — A boar at close quarters — The river system — 

 Denudation of forests— Cauvery Power Works — Game of the country 

 — Malabar and Kanara — Dense jungles — Flora and hunting con- 

 ditions — -A queer shikari and a bull bison — Anacondu, shikari — 

 Malabar jungles at night — A morning sunrise- — A long trek after a 

 great herd — Run into the bison — An impatient shikari — Wound a 

 bull — Follow the trail— Typical jungle scenes — Come up with bull 

 again — He again makes off — Dense bamboo jungle— The final tussle. 



THE fine jungles of Southern India cover a very 

 considerable area of the great triangular tract of 

 country situated to the south of the Nerbudda 

 River. This territory comprises the Native 

 State of Travancore, famed amongst shikaris for its glorious 

 sporting possibilities ; the Annamallies and Palni Hills ; 

 the Wynaad, Coorg, Malabar and Kanara Forests. East- 

 wards the jungles stretch through Southern Mysore to 

 Denkanicotta. The heavy forests fringing the Western 

 Ghats run from Malabar northwards as far as Sangor in the 

 Central Provinces, and those along the Eastern Ghats are 

 also prolonged northwards on that side of the country to 

 Sambalpur in the Central Provinces, and on into Chota 

 Nagpur to the north-east. The Nizam's Dominions of the 

 Great Haiderabad State are situated in the North Central 

 portion of the triangle, and contain jungles which afford 

 an asylum to most of the varieties of big game — an asylum 

 in which the game conservancy policy undertaken for some 



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