116 MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 



I had purchased a riding-camel, as being very useful for 

 antelope and other shooting along our line of march through 

 the plains. Having returned one evening rather early from 

 the jungles, I had mounted this animal with a view to testing 

 its paces as well as my own power of adapting myself to 

 them, for it was my first essay at camel-riding. I took my 

 gun with me on the chance of getting a shot at jungle-fowl, 

 as these game little wild bantams of Upper India are not only 

 exactly like domestic ones in their appearance, but they also 

 have a habit in common of scraping among horse litter on 

 roads, or wherever they can find it. 1 I was returning in the 

 gloaming towards camp, when I noticed the indistinct form 

 of an animal, which, in the dim uncertain light, I took to be 

 a deer, lying in the middle of a small open glade not far from 

 the road. Telling the driver, who sat in front of me, to make 

 the camel kneel down, I dismounted, and taking my gun, 

 which was loaded with wire-cartridges, had soon crept along 

 under cover of some bushes, until I imagined I must be pretty 

 close to the animal, when I cautiously raised my head to 

 reconnoitre. To my astonishment I found I was within 

 twenty paces of a fine leopard, He was looking towards me, 

 and whisking his tail from side to side. As I thought that a 

 charge of shot would hardly do for a leopard, I slowly with- 

 drew my head, and stealing back as quickly and quietly as 

 possible to the camel, drew one of the cartridges and replaced 

 it with a bullet. Although the brute must have been watch- 

 ing us all the time, strange to say he never moved until I had 

 crawled up near him as before. I had cocked the gun and 

 was slowly raising it, when, ere I had time to take aim, with 

 a grunt and a bound he disappeared in the thick jungle close 

 behind him. Jumping up, I ran after him ; but it was useless, 

 for I could see nothing in the impenetrable gloom of the 



1 This jungle-cock differs from that found in the more southern parts of 

 India, which is of a general greyish colour, with the white-spotted hackles so 

 valuable to the fly-dresser. 



