RESULT OF A PRACTICAL JOKE. 



23 



or on the branches of some convenient tree, where the villager 

 is wont to sit on sentry with his matchlock, or as often to 

 fall asleep at night, by way of protecting his crops from the 

 ravages of wild animals. But the chances are so doubtful 

 that " the game is not worth the candle." One of the many 

 tales told by my native followers round our camp-fire, was of 

 a villager who paid dearly for playing a practical joke in 

 personifying a bear. Enveloping himself in his black blanket, 

 and imitating the noise of a bear, this man one night entered 

 a corn - field with the 

 playful idea of testing 

 the courage of the ten- 

 ant of the machan. The 

 watcher promptly let 

 drive with his match- 

 lock, and inflicted a 

 wound from which the 

 practical joker died. 



It is a marvel how a 

 cunning old Bruin will 

 sometimes contrive to 

 hide his big black car- 

 cass in a tree, so well as 

 to avoid detection. Of 

 this I had a fair example when I camped out and spent 

 Christmas-day with my shikarees among the ferae naturce 

 in the woods, there being no compatriot with whom to 

 pass that festive time then within sixty miles of the out- 

 post. Kurbeer and I had been trying to circumvent two 

 jurrow deer, which, having got wind of us, made off. As they 

 were trotting away past an oak-tree, I chanced to notice that 

 some of its branches were violently shaken. Being just the 

 end of the acorn season, we conjectured this phenomenon was 

 traceable to a bear up the tree, so we stole quietly towards it 

 in order to have a closer inspection. I had almost passed the 



" On sentry" in a Machan. 



