Hog- h M ntmg. 197 



ploughed up and yield a golden harvest. At present 

 these are as hard as brick-bats, and are divided into 

 various sized squares by tiny dams, which retain the 

 water during the time of cultivation. To the north 

 and south the country is much the same, except that 

 topes of trees occur, with more or less of under- 

 growth, in which occasionally a sounder of pigs is 

 found. The country, although flat, is not easy to 

 ride over, for it is intersected by arms of the sea, 

 which are either full or empty according to the state 

 of the tides. Many of these are too wide to jump, 

 and impossible to scramble through, owing to the 

 ooze in their bottoms. Thus wherever practicable, 

 turf bridges or dams are built across them as a 

 temporary measure, for these will be swept away 

 by the first heavy flood. White flags denoted the 

 sites of these most necessary "rights of way." The 

 pigs cared nothing for the armlets of the sea, as they 

 can wade, half swimming, through liquid mud, in 

 which a heavier body would sink out of sight. But 

 there are other creeks always full of water, too broad 

 to bridge, and if once a pig plunges into one 

 of them, he is safe for that day, as there is no 

 following him. The indigo, too, is high and matted, 

 and very apt to bring a horse down. There are also 

 marshes, almost quagmires, through which no horse 

 can go. So, though to the eye the vast maidan 

 looks easy to gallop over, all is not plain sailing, as 

 I have shown above ; but it is easy compared to 

 ground in Central India, where the abominable cot- 

 ton soil is so prevalent. This is a kind of friable 

 black earth, with innumerable deep cracks covering its 

 surface, over which the hog-hunter has to gallop at full 



