G8 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



the first time. He was more like the professional hunter 

 of the American backwoods than any other native of 

 India I have ever met. His short trousers and hunting- 

 shirt of Mhowa green displayed sinewy limbs and throat 

 of a clear red brown, little darker than the colour of a 

 sun-burnt European. An upright carriage and light 

 springy step marked him out as a roamer of the forests 

 from youth upwards ; and the English double-barrelled 

 gun, and workmanlike appointments of yellow sambar 

 leather, looked like the genuine sportsman I soon found 

 him to be. Many a glorious day did I afterwards pass 

 with him in the pursuit of nobler game than black 

 bucks. 



The chikdrd, or Indian gazelle,^ is another antelope 

 very common in Central India. It is called often the 

 " ravine deer " by sportsmen ; and, as regards the first 

 part of the name, is so far well denoted. Its favourite 

 haunts are the banks of the shallow ravines that often 

 intersect the plain country in the neighbourhood of 

 rivers, and seam the slopes of the higher eminences 

 rising out of the great central table-land. These are 

 generally thinly clothed with low thorny bushes, on the 

 young shoots and pods of which it browses like the 

 domestic goat. Of course it is wrong to call it a 

 *' deer," which term properly belongs only to the solid- 

 horned Cervidce. Considerably smaller than the black 

 antelope, the gazelle also diff'ers much from it in habits. 

 It prefers low jungle to the open plain ; and trusts more 

 to its watchfulness and activity than to speed, which, 

 however, it also possesses in a high degree. It is very 

 rare to catch a gazelle, or still more a herd of them, ofi" 

 their guard ; and it is surprising how, on the least 

 * Gazella Benneitii. 



