AX EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 409 



again till he fell heavily against the embankment of a 

 rice-field, and then, stepping up, I put a three-ounce 

 shell behind his shoulder, and with a quiver of the 

 limbs he gave it up. He was a fine animal, in the 

 prime of life, and we were amazed at the bulk and 

 strength exhibited by his massive form. The horns 

 were each three feet ten inches long, which is nearly 

 the extreme length they ever attain here.* He had 

 sixteen bullets in him before he died, several of large 

 calibre, and at close quarters. We were, however, 

 shooting with bullets of plain lead, and I found that 

 my first two-ounce ball, propelled by eight drachms of 

 powder, had flattened out on his shoulder, pulverising 

 the bones, however, and completely laming him. After 

 this we shot with hardened projectiles. 



Next day we embarked in a long canoe, hollowed 

 from the stem of a mighty sal tree, on the bosom of the 

 Mahanadi, and sailed down to Sambalpiir in two days 

 and a night. It was mighty exciting work, the stream 

 passing at intervals over long rapids, where the water, 

 broken into many channels, rushed between narrow 

 banks overhung with bushes, the boatmen steering the 

 canoe with long poles in the most dexterous manner, 

 now warding her bows from a rock on which the stream 

 broke in a sheet of foam, then prostrating themselves at 

 the bottom of the l)oat to avoid the sweep of the 

 branches, while the canoe shot through some narrow 

 passage, and presently emerging, after a final shave 

 against a sunken rock, into a deep and silent pool, 

 where the plash of huge fish, and the eye-knobs and 

 serrated backs of crocodiles sailing about, showed that 

 we had entered one of the long, silent reaches that 



* Fossil horns of much larger size have been found in the 

 Narbada gravels, along with bones of the hippopotamus, etc. 



