A HAUNTED HOUSE. 11 



my somewhat confused ideas. My first thought was of the 

 last words of my host at dinner regarding the reputation of 

 the house ; my next was that perhaps he might be playing 

 a joke, for it was well known how dearly he loved one. 

 Meantime I could feel fingers, as I imagined, moving slowly 

 and stealthily up my leg and on to my body. I must con- 

 fess I now underwent that most unpleasant flesh-creeping 

 sensation which most persons at some time or another have 

 experienced. And when the seeming fingers at last reached 

 my head, and I felt them stirring my hair, which by this 

 time was assuming an upright position, I could bear it no 

 longer. Throwing off the clothes, I sprang from the bed, 

 but only to hear a rustle on the floor-matting as my noc- 

 turnal visitor pattered off in the dark. Little more sleep 

 did I get that night, for the unearthly noises which went on 

 through the house were enough to have awakened the Seven 

 Sleepers of Ephesus. The place was haunted, and no mis- 

 take, in one way at any rate ; but after that night never a 

 ghost did I hear or see there nothing but the rats, with 

 which it was prodigiously infested, rampaging about it ; and 

 to these, after a time, I got quite accustomed. Next morn- 

 ing at breakfast we had a good laugh over my mysteri- 

 ous experience ; but whether ghost or rat was my visitor 

 that night, I have never to this day been able to deter- 

 mine. 



But let us now commence business with the Himalayan 

 black bear, called laloo or rcech by the natives, which is 

 common everywhere on the middle and lower ranges. Why 

 it is termed Ursus Tibetanus in natural history I never 

 could quite comprehend, as it is distinctly a forest-loving 

 beast, and most unlikely to be found on the bare table-lands 

 of Tibet, where it is never heard of. 



It was early in the month of September when one morning 

 news was brought in of a bear that had been committing 

 depredations in some corn-fields a few miles off. There 

 happened at the time to be several sportsmen at Shore, all 



