THE TEAK REGION. 245 



we reached it long after sundown, and encamped un- 

 comfortably in the open plain for the night. The 

 place was perfectly puddled up with the feet of sambar, 

 the footmarks ranging from a day to weeks old ; and 

 in the grass around were literally thousands of sambar 

 forms, while every second or third tree was peeled of 

 its bark by the rubbing of the stags' horns against 

 them. Next morning we started off, with an extra 

 supply of ammunition, in different directions, our only 

 fear being that we had not people enough to carry 

 in all the enormous stags we expected to bag. For 

 my part, I wandered round and round the plateaux, 

 and over their tojDS, and through the hollow ground, 

 and everywhere within six miles on my side of the 

 hill ; and though the sambar signs were everywhere 

 plentiful and recent, and there were droppings of 

 bison also of some weeks old, not a dun hide of 

 stag or hind did my eyes behold that morning. It 

 was truly amazing, and I almost feared to return to 

 camp lest all the beasts should have gone across to 

 T.'s side, and I should find him smoking the pipe of 

 satisfaction amid a hecatomb of slain. He had re- 

 turned before myself, however ; and mutual delight 

 was no doubt displayed in our countenances when 

 we found that each was in precisely the same plight 

 as the other — not having seen hoof or horn between 

 us ! Half believing with the Bheels that the place 

 was enchanted, we stayed and tried again next day, 

 but the result was precisely the same. Then we vowed 

 that Dhowtea of the Bheels should be written down with 

 the blackest of spots in our mental map. We were 

 utterly ruined, of course, with the Bheels. Having 

 seen these multitudes of ghostly sambar tracks, we 



