A NIGHT BY A JUNGLE POOL 167 



wise, scrapes his rough hide luxuriously against the 

 bark. 



Tiring of this exercise, the stately measured walk is 

 recommenced, and he feeds slowly off, over a little glade, 

 and gradually disappears in the labyrinth of ghostly 

 yellow trunks. He is probably one of those who drank at 

 our pool to-day, and so is indifferent to water for the next 

 forty-eight hours or thereabouts, though he may turn up in 

 the hour before dawn for a roll and mud-bath. 



The sound of his wandering steps in the leaves dies 

 gradually away, and all is again still, save for the eternal 

 " Chuckoo chuckoo /" of the nightjars, and their prolonged 

 cry of " Hoo hoo koo ! " as they flit and sail from tree to 

 tree, rock to rock. 



One of the most exciting bits of this night work is the 

 waiting to see what it is that for the last half-hour has 

 been moving towards the pool through the tell-tale leaves, 

 and now emerges, and halts a dark, shapeless mass on 

 the edge of the jungle. 



Perhaps it were hardly interesting to record how several 

 sounders of hog boar, sows, and many little squeakers 

 approached, wallowed, drank, and finally trotted off, grunt- 

 ing satisfaction, to where their favourite roots were to be 

 had for the grubbing ; how a pair of jackals arrived, and 

 while one danced a remarkably fantastic fandango in a 

 sandhole, how its mate discovered some brooding danger, 

 and, the signal given, how the pair disappeared, with many 

 a suspicious halt and backward stare all this in the 

 effulgence of a full tropic moon. 



I took out my note-book and pencilled little notes. 

 I smoked gently, for I hold that except under certain 

 circumstances of position and wind when tobacco smoke 

 can be detected, the natural perfume of he who smokes 

 not would be no less noticeable. 



Many a night had I passed in this al fresco manner: 

 but never a one when all so combined to please, and 



