216 BEAUTIFUL SCENE. 



the bushes, soon drove the animal out by flinging down a 

 stone. But the cunning brute must have detected me below, 

 for instead of coming downwards, as I had every reason to 

 expect, it took a slant upwards, and never stopped until it 

 disappeared over the sky-line far away at the head of the 

 glen ; so I had once more to return dejectedly to the tents. 



That evening one of the men reported his having seen, in 

 the gloaming, a surrow moving among the oak-trees near the 

 head of the glen, when fetching water for camp from a spring 

 there, probably the animal we had driven from its usual 

 haunt returning to rejoin its companion. For surrow seem 

 to be very domestic in their habits, with respect to their 

 family ties; but as their homes are rather extensive and 

 difficult of access, an interview with them is by no means 

 easy to obtain. 



Next day being Sunday, we gave ourselves and the surrow 

 a rest. As we reclined on the grass near our tents, enjoying 

 the cool evening breeze and looking down on the forest- 

 clad Doon 4000 feet below, the prospect was singularly 

 beautiful. The sun was sinking, like a fiery red ball, in the 

 haze that dimmed the distant plain stretching away beyond 

 the low irregular line of the Sewalik hills ; whilst behind us, 

 over the tree-tops, rose the pale full moon like a huge silver 

 globe. Again the surrow was seen just before dark by our 

 men who were fetching water, so I determined to organise a 

 regular beat through the gorge on the morrow. 



Early next morning I worked over some old landslips east- 

 ward of our camp, the long steep slopes of which, where not 

 too rocky and precipitous, were now clothed with spear-grass 

 and brushwood, interspersed here and there with oak and 

 cheer trees. 1 On one of my previous visits to this locality I 

 had killed a fine surrow there; this time, however, I saw 



1 The cheer-tree (Pinus longifolid) much resembles the Scotch fir, but with 

 longer and paler-green spines. It is the commonest kind of pine that grows 

 on the lower and middle ranges. 



