72 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



long in one position. All at once, without a sound 

 to warn me, two bears appeared coming straight 

 down to the pool. When they got there I aimed 

 at one and fired. Before I could note the effect of 

 the shot he reared up and attacked his companion, 

 growling fiercely. The other, who was nothing loth 

 for a fight (when is a Ceylon bear ? — the most 

 cantankerous and evil-dispositioned little wretch on 

 the face of the earth), at once grappled with him, 

 and they waltzed round and round biting and claw- 

 ing savagely. Meanwhile, I afforded them an ac- 

 companiment to their dance by emptying my rifle 

 three times into the pair. At last one dropped dead, 

 and the other, after sniffing at him, moved slowly 

 off, I firing my last two cartridges at him as he 

 went. We descended the tree, and I sent Jim Crow 

 off for the carts. When these arrived I got some 

 fresh cartridges, and accompanied by Will in pyjamas 

 and slippers, and by Jim Crow with a lantern, we 

 proceeded to look for bear number two. I need 

 hardly say we proceeded cautiously, for a Ceylon 

 bear in the daytime and unprovoked is a dangerous 

 beast, so what would he be wounded and in the dark ? 

 However, our caution was unnecessary, for a score 

 of yards away we found him also dead. Having 

 seen him put in the baggage-cart, we turned in and 

 soon dropped off, to the accompaniment of creaking 

 axles and the " Dah ! dah ! " ^ of the drivers. , 



I may here add that when we came to examine 

 the bears next day, we found one bear had been 

 hit by two bullets and one by three. This gives 

 an average of 50 per cent of hits at about seventy 

 yards. I should call this a good average in the 



1 The Ceylon bullock-driver's equivalent for " Come hup." 



