156 STALKS ABROAD 



poised here and there in quest of their morning's 

 meal, quartering the ground as regularly and quietly 

 as any good setter. A thatched watch-tower marked 

 a little patch of cultivation. In the branches of an 

 overhanging tree chattered and grimaced a troop of 

 grey-whiskered monkeys. We left them talking ex- 

 citedly the one to the other in the strange unintelli- 

 gible language of the bandar-log, while kites wheeled 

 overhead and the little tits swayed and bobbed across 

 the clearings. 



Through a patch of young sugar-cane I saw a 

 buck's head. An easy stalk gave me an easy shot. 

 He was an old beast with rough horns, very much 

 knocked about. 



Then Robert got up in the front tonga, the buck 

 was tucked away underneath and we moved out into 

 the plain once more. The high grass gave way to 

 dusty hummocks of earth and, in the distance, belts 

 of cultivation. The tongas swung and creaked on. 

 The patient bullocks with their green- painted horns 

 plodded forward, placidly contented. On a sudden 

 the leading pair stopped. Through the grass, away 

 in the distance, I saw spiral horns rising long and 

 sharp against the sky, the clean-cut black-arid-white 

 body underneath. 



Hardly had the tonga come to a standstill when 

 Robert was off. He had not gone far when he 

 stopped, beckoning to Burton. Not till then did 

 another buck, feeding alone at right angles to the 

 road, become apparent. He had seen us but was not 



