252 TRACKING GAME. 



" It is not however to be supposed (says the late Mr. 

 Sanderson, a great East Indian authority on sporting matters) 

 that a print visible to an Indian, would not be equally so 

 to a European, if pointed out to him. The skill of track- 

 ing lies in first observing and reading what the untrained 

 eye would pass over, or be unable to interpret. When actual 

 footprints fail, trackers are guided by broken twigs, displaced 

 blades of grass, dew shaken from leaves whilst others are 

 covered by it, and other signs." * 



Mr. Sanderson, from his official position as head of 

 the Government Elephant-catching Establishment, had 

 peculiar facilities for making himself fully acquainted 

 with these matters, a highly trained staff of native 

 tracksmen being always at his command, who had to 

 watch the movements of the herds of wild animals, 

 sometimes for weeks together, before a capture was 

 attempted. 



The last part of the paragraph quoted from his 

 work, as to the following of trails by means of 

 broken twigs, displaced grass, etc., is a matter of actual 

 historical record, and is known to have been practised 

 in America, more than a century ago, by white forest 

 rangers in pursuit of Indian war parties, engaged in 

 carrying off white female prisoners and other plunder. 



The circumstance has been cleverly used in the make-up 

 of the narrative of Fenimore Cooper's celebrated novel 

 " The Last of the Mohicans," f in his account of the pursuit 

 and recapture of Alice and Cora which we have already 

 noticed. It is quite worth while to look over the story 



* Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Beasts of India, and Modes of 

 Capturing Elephants, by G. P. Sanderson, 1879, p. 29 (Mr. Sanderson 

 was chief of the Indian Government Kheddah, or Elephant-catching 

 Establishment of Mysore). 



j Originally published in America in 1826, by Fenimore Cooper 

 (born 1789, died 1851). 





