"GROOMING" FOR BEARS 83 



been shed as we rode along not far from here the previous 

 day. Perhaps they may still attract the bears. In their 

 direction therefore, and let the process of ghooming be 

 resumed ! 



Winding round promontory after promontory of dark 

 terraces of woods, the yellow-white grass grows long and 

 rank, and the moon, shining down with her peculiar cold 

 stare, exercises a strange influence on the eyesight. 

 Everything seems unreal. Each black rock or fallen tree- 

 trunk appears invested with occult powers of motion, and 

 many are the halts to stare, and peer, and rub our eyes and 

 stare again. The night must be far spent in this noise- 

 less, shadowy walk of ours ; the feet move mechanically, 

 the brain feels a sleepy stagnation creeping over all until 

 one realises the enormous and pleasant difference between 

 this, so leisurely a perambulation in an atmosphere oi 

 perfect temperature and translucency, and that, the dis- 

 advantage of a tramp abroad in the sweltering glare of an 

 Indian sun. 



We fall to picturing the ways and habits of the bears 

 that we seek : how, now many hours since, they must 

 have come clambering uncouthly upwards from the preci- 

 pice-girdled ravines surrounding these pleasant uplands, to 

 emerge on these grassy glades and make for the well- 

 known trees mother and cubs ; male and female ; or crusty 

 old he-bear moving along and puffing by his lone. They 

 will be right in the middle of the woods now ; but by-and- 

 by they must, when they instinctively become aware of 

 the approach of dawn, cross the open grass once more on 

 their downward, homeward way. 



Wandering along in this manner, it must have been 

 about the hour of two in the morning that we became 

 aware of a distant sound from the dark line of trees to 

 the left. There was not the slightest stirring of the air, 

 all was dead and white and ghostly. We halted but the 

 slight sound had ceased. Moving onwards once more, it 



