336 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA, 



when I saw the driver makino: sisjnals. He had followed 

 me up above, and had seen the panther sneak back 

 along the little nala, which led into the top of the 

 ravine, and re-enter the latter. I then went and placed 

 myself so as to command the top of the ravine, and sent 

 people below to fling in stones, and presently the 

 panther broke again at the same place, this time gallop- 

 ing away openly across the plain. I missed with both 

 barrels of my rifle, but turned him over with a lucky 

 shot from a smooth-bore, at more than two hundred 

 yards. I then went up to him on the elephant, and 

 he made feeble attemj)ts to rise and come at me, but he 

 was too far gone to succeed. The panther will charge 

 an elephant with the greatest ferocity. Near Sambalpur, 

 a party of us were beating a bamboo cover for pigs, 

 with a view to the sticking thereof, my elephant accom- 

 panying the beaters, when a shout from the latter 

 announced that they had stumbled on a panther. They 

 took to trees, and I got on the elephant to turn him 

 out, while the others exchanged their hog-spears for 

 rifles, and surrounded the place on trees. She got up 

 before me, bounding away over the low bamboos, and I 

 struck her on the rum^D with a light breech-loading gun 

 as she disappeared. Several shots from the trees failed 

 to stop her, and she took refuge in a very dense thorny 

 cover on the banks of a little stream. Twice up and 

 down I passed without seeing the brute, but firing once 

 into a log of wood in mistake for her, and was going 

 along the top of the cover for the third time when the 

 elephant pointed down the bank with her extended 

 trunk. We threw some stones in, but nothing moved ; 

 and at last a peon came up with a huge stone on his 

 head, which he heaved down the bank. Next moment 

 a yellow streak shot from the bushes, and, levelling the 



