398 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



lie had several pretty severe bites iu the arms and 

 legs before I could arrive to his rescue. As a rule 

 Tinker was as quiet as a lamb with men ; but when 

 roused by blood he was a perfect devil ; and as his size 

 and weight were immense I was often rather afraid 

 of him myself. Poor fellow, his formidable aspect 

 and a few outbursts of this sort were the death of 

 him, being poisoned by a dog boy a few months 

 afterwards. Bell broke her neck by chasing an antelope 

 down a blind well, a few marches after the hunt I have 

 related ; the best of the two pups was carried off 

 by a leopard or hyaena ; and altogether I was so disgusted 

 with the bad luck I had always had in keeping large 

 dogs in India that I gave it up altogether ; and I cannot 

 say that I found very much loss accrue to my sport 

 in consequence. I believe they lose more wounded 

 animals, by driving them out of reach, than they 

 recover. 



On the way back I shot another hind, who stood too 

 lonof to gaze at the unwonted intruders, and saw the 

 tracks of a wild elephant sinking deep into the soft, 

 black soil. I was told afterwards that this elephant 

 was one wdiich had broken loose from captivity about 

 ten years previously, and had since inhabited the dense 

 covers about the head of the Halon river. He after- 

 wards annoyed the forest officers not a little by syste- 

 matically demolishing all the masonry boundary pillars 

 erected by them round the reserved forest. Keally wild 

 elephants do not come so far west as this ; the country 

 to the east of Amarkantak (the source of the Narbada), 

 or at the most the Samni valley, a little nearer than 

 that place, being their most westerly range in this part 

 of India. Formerly, how^ever, the whole of this country, 

 and far to the west of it, w^as the home of the wild 



