232 THE HIGfHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



On another occasion I secured the largest sambar 

 horns I have ever seen, in a drive. It was in the Bori 

 teak forest, a lovely little valley nestling under the 

 northern scarp of the Mahadeo hills, and surrounded 

 on three sides by its mural precipices. Being very 

 inaccessible from the plains, more teak trees have here 

 escaped the destroying timber contractor than almost 

 anywhere else ; and K., D., and myself were engaged in 

 demarcatinsj its boundaries as a reserved forest. Havinsf 

 toiled for some days putting up cairns of stones along 

 the open southern border, where it is not enclosed 

 by precipices, and completed the business, we decided 

 to wind up with a drive in the forest itself for sambar^ 

 and the chance of a few bison whose tracks we had 

 seen during our work. The grass was so long and 

 the forest so thick that driving was then almost the 

 only possible way of getting game. We had had 

 a number of Gonds and Korkiis out with us at the 

 boundary work, and the prospect of abundance of 

 meat readily induced them to beat for us. A long 

 slope of broken ground between the foot of the scarp 

 and the bottom of the glen was to be beaten cross ways ; 

 D. took the post just below^ the scarp, R. remained 

 near the bottom, and I had the middle place. I 

 screened myself behind the thick double trunk of a 

 teak tree, forking from the ground. The beat was 

 a short one, and I had not waited lonfy before a tremen- 

 dous crashing on the hill-side above me, followed by 

 a shot from D., announced the approach of some heavy 

 animal. I thought it was a bull bison at least, and 

 was surprised when a sambar stag burst through the 

 underwood just in front of me, and, with horns laid 

 alonor his flanks, clattered down the steep hill-side. 



