ON THE COTTON PLAINS 153 



now so tied to her side), and found myself separated from 

 her by an expanse of tenacious wet soil. As I stood un- 

 decided, there came a laboured panting, and a yell of 

 encouragement, as a village dog, urged on by his owner, 

 snatched fiercely at my flank! With a bound I escaped 

 him, and toiled frantically over the soft mud, into which 

 my sharp feet sank deeply. Again I felt, with despair, the 

 hot breath on my haunch when suddenly the ground 

 became harder, I drew away from my pursuer, and, gain- 

 ing the grassy slope of a rising ground, finally shook 

 him off, baffled, in spite of his oiled feet ; he now halted 

 with lolling tongue, and, turning, slunk back whence he 

 came. 



With the rain the crops rose, and in a few weeks the 

 plains were clothed in green jawdri and wide fields of 

 cotton, save for the ground reserved for the later sowings 

 of wheat and gram -jawdri that soon reared its great 

 stalks high above the heads of the workers in the fields ; 

 that formed a pleasant covert for us, who now wandered 

 in small and scattered bands, scarce troubling to change 

 our quarters, so abundant and accessible was our food. 

 But with the jawdri came the Shots. Cunningly disposing 

 their tall nets along the edge and angles of the fields of 

 high millet, they would endeavour to move a herd of ante- 

 lope so as to entangle them in a cul-de-sac ; and their 

 patience and skill were nearly always rewarded by some 

 foolish one of our number. 



The first time I was introduced to this danger was when 

 my sprouting horns were only a few inches in length. We 

 were all lying amid the stems of a wide field of jawdri, 

 the thick green heads of which sheltered us from the 

 peculiarly intense sun of late September. It had been 

 very still, when a slight breeze set the tall corn whispering, 

 and brought on its breath the strange acrid odour which 

 I had noticed as being peculiar to men. So pronounced 

 was it that I instinctively sprang up, and was followed by 



