Panthers and Leopards (Asiatic]. 287 



and lie in waiting for them." I agreed, and he went off 

 with a couple of men to get them ready. A " mart" 

 may be either in a tree off the ground (then usually 

 styled a machan), or hollowed out of the ground, a 

 shallow circular pit being dug and the earth raised a 

 little all round, with a few clods left here and 

 there, to prevent the person sitting up being too con- 

 spicuous. Each has its advantages. Raised off the 

 ground one is safer, but when beasts approach a kill 

 they are very apt to look up and gaze around. Per- 

 haps they have been fired at before from such a coign 

 of vantage, and if they see the slightest suspicious dis- 

 arrangement of the foliage, they quickly disappear, 

 but they seldom look around on the ground, trusting 

 probably to their acute sense of smell to detect a 

 hidden foe. We sat up that and the following night 

 without being disturbed, and the people were getting 

 reassured and I was thinking of going on, when the 

 wife of one of the peons disappeared. So that night 

 the shikarie and I took up our position extra early. 

 We were almost a quarter of a mile from the village. 

 On the right side going from it, there was a small 

 clearance where we were, and the little moon there 

 was, shone upon us for about three hours. The jungle 

 adjoining was pretty dense, consisting of thorny bushes 

 about six or seven feet high. I am sorry to say the 

 man with me was not as brave as he had been. The 

 stories he had heard, coupled with the disappearance 

 of the woman, told upon his nerves, and he had 

 got that tantalising sort of half- cough half- expectora- 

 tion, which one so often notices in a native who is half 

 afraid at a critical moment, and which generally ruins 

 all sport, as it gives warning to any wild beast who 



