366 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



aud their road of escape is cut off. As a rule, in 

 frequented parts, they do not come out of their midday 

 retreats, in caves and dense thickets, until nightfall ; 

 but, in remoter tracts, they may be met with in the 

 middle of the day. I was once charged by four bears 

 all at once, which I had come upon near the high-road 

 between Jubbulpiir and Damoh, feeding under a mhov/a 

 tree. I had two guns, and hit three of them ; but had 

 to bolt from the fourth, who chased me about a hundred 

 yards, and then dived into a ravine. Returning to the 

 scene of action, I found one sitting at the foot of a tree, 

 bewailing his fate in most melancholy whines, and 

 finished him with a ball in the ear. The other two 

 had gone down the slope of a hill, and I started off 

 to head them. The ground was rocky and very 

 slippery, and I had not gone far when I fell, my rifle 

 sliding away down the hill, to the considerable damage 

 of its stock and barrels. I picked myself up, however, 

 and by dint of hard running, arrived above and parallel 

 to the bears, and commenced a running fight with them, 

 in which my chances would have been a good deal 

 better, had I had a breech instead of a muzzle-loader. 

 As it was, I had to keep one barrel unfired in case of 

 a charge, and peg away at long intervals with the 

 other. At last, one of them came round up the hill 

 at me, rising on his hind-legs, pulling down branches, 

 and dancing and spluttering in so ludicrous a manner, 

 that I could scarcely shoot for laughter. AVhen I did, 

 he got both barrels through the chest, and subsided. 

 1 never got the other, as it had sufticient headway to 

 escape into some hollow rocks near the river-side. A 

 wounded bear will often charge with great determina- 

 tion. He comes on like a great cannon-ball ; and the 

 popular idea, that he will rise on his hind-legs in 



