THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER 9 



village, grove, and cornfield, over bridges spanning broad 

 reaches of sandy river-bed, whither, with bare bronze 

 arms steadying the great brass water -pots poised so 

 picturesquely on their heads, the village women take 

 their slow and graceful way. 



Four hours pass. The hills at last seem quite near. 

 The cracked bugle announces the arrival of the "mail." 

 And, thirty miles from the railway, the post-tonga rolls 

 into its destination, depositing us before a clean-looking 

 colour-washed building. A servant salaams profoundly in 

 the verandah, and shows us into a surprisingly comfort- 

 able suite of furnished apartments. "Certainly! A warm 

 bath shall be instantly ready. And will the sahib order 

 breakfast ? " 



This welcome half-way house is but one of the numerous 

 " Dak Bungalows," or rest-houses, furnished by a paternal 

 Government for the shelter of travellers or its servants on 

 tour. The obsequious slave is its representative agent. 



The range of mountains rising so steeply from the plain 

 some six miles away to the northward is the southern 

 face of the Satpuras, that great basaltic chain of flat- 

 topped hills, which, originating at an altitude of some 

 five thousand feet in the Western Ghats, goes slanting 

 across almost the entire breadth of India to decline 

 gradually into the jungly wastes of Chutia Nagpur nine 

 hundred miles to the far east. And as we set out once 

 more, on horseback, having rested during the heat of the 

 day, they rise up before us a long, yellow, rampart-like 

 wall of mountain region, capped by the flat-topped rock- 

 girt plateaux so prevalent in the " trap " formation. 



The southern slopes, exposed to the full force of the 

 sun and yearly rains, present a somewhat barren aspect, 

 and though the season is but early December, not three 

 months since the monsoon deluges ceased, the trees, chiefly 

 those of the Boswellia species with their tortuous, sulphur- 

 coloured arms, have to a large extent shed their leaves. 



