342 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



of spotted deer gradually collected on all the knolls 

 within sight on the inward side. They grew and grew 

 in numbers, gazing back at the beaters and forward at 

 the tree, where they had often run the gauntlet before. 

 They were very unwilling to come on, but the drive was- 

 strong and not to be eluded. I watched for the tiger till 

 many of the deer had gone past ; at first a straggling 

 doe with her fawn, then small groups, and finally a great 

 hustling mass of dappled hides and tossing antlers. 

 There was no tiger evidently in the beat. The Thakiir's 

 long matchlock had already been the death of a buck, 

 and he was painfully reloading its long tube from his 

 primitive charging implements. I had a couple of rifles,, 

 single and doable, and it was the work of as many 

 seconds only to fire the three barrels, killing two and 

 wounding another. There were no breech-loaders in 

 those days ; but I had time to reload the double while 

 the stream of deer poured past, and secure two more 

 bucks before the beaters came up. The wounded buck 

 was afterwards recovered. There cannot have been less 

 than a thousand spotted deer in this beat ; and I never 

 before or since saw such a sight. With a breech-loader 

 twenty or thirty bucks could easily have been killed. 

 One of the bucks I killed had the largest horns I have 

 ever seen, measuring each thirty-eight inches round the 

 curve. 



1 had another beat for " Whitehead " afterwards, near 

 the same place. The beaters came on him in a patch 

 of long grass jungle, from which he obstinately refused 

 to move. He had been once wounded in a drive, and 

 never would face the guns again. At last we set fire to 

 the jungle, while I awaited him on a tree at one end. 

 The raging flames must have passed comj^letely over 

 him, and it was not till they had nearly reached my 



