THE HIGHER NARBADA. 337 



adventurous peon, like a flash of liglitning came straiglit 

 at my elephant's head, when, just at the last spring, I 

 broke her back with the breech-loader, and she fell over 

 under the elephant's trunk, tearing at the earth and 

 stones and her own body in her bloody rage. She had 

 a cub in the cover, about the size of a cat, wliich 1 shot 

 on the way back. 



The method usually resorted to by old Bamanjee 

 and other native shikaris for killing panthers and 

 leopards was by tying out a kid, with a line attached to 

 a fish-hook through its ear, a pull at which makes the 

 poor little brute continue to squeak, after it has cried 

 itself to silence about its mother. No sentiment of 

 humanity interferes with the devices of the mild Hindii. 

 A dog in a pit, with a basket-work cover over it, and 

 similarly attached to a line, is equally effective. I have 

 known panthers repeatedly to take animals they have 

 killed up into trees to devour, and once found the body 

 of a child, that had been killed by a panther in the 

 Betul district, so disposed of in the fork of a tree. 

 They are very often lost, I believe, by taking unobserved 

 to trees. Beating them out of cover with a strong body 

 of beaters and fireworks is, on the whole, the most suc- 

 cessful way of hunting these cunning brutes ; but it is 

 accompanied by a good deal of risk to the beaters as 

 well as to the sportsman, if he is over- venturesome ; 

 and it is apt, also, to end in disappointment in most 

 instances. My own experience is that the majority of 

 panthers one finds are come across more by luck than 

 good management. 



Old Bamanjee, w^ith whom I had often been out on 

 short trips with considerable success, induced me to take 

 a month's leave, and accompany him up the Narbadd 

 valley from Jubbulpur to shoot. The game promised 



