Jungle By- Ways in India 



lair. Curiously enough he was not at home. We 

 prodded and routed it about to enable me to 

 examine the abode thoroughly. Piggy makes it, 

 in order to enable him to snooze away the hot 

 part of the day, with a snug thatch roof over him 

 to keep off the hot rays of the sun and the heavy 

 rain of the monsoon. The accommodation is 

 somewhat cramped, however, and one could not 

 help but surmise that the atmosphere inside must 

 get somewhat stuffy. The shikaris, as soon as we 

 got off the steep slopes, started in earnest to look 

 for fresh tracks, and after half an hour's work they 

 found the trail of an old bull. Quite fresh it ap- 

 peared, and we took it up, only the trackers and 

 myself, the rest of the men being left behind. 

 To my inexperienced eye these tracks looked like 

 those of an ordinary cow ; they are, however, 

 rounder, larger and less pointed in front. I 

 show them in the sketch overleaf. Now I saw my 

 men really at work. Every mark was considered 

 carefully between them, but quite silently. The 

 green shoots of bamboos and jungle trees and 

 shrubs on each side of the trail were closely 

 and critically examined, in order to judge of the 

 amount and freshness of the sap oozing from 

 cropped parts, and thus enable an estimate to 

 be formed of the time at which the bison passed 

 the spot. Not a word was spoken ; signs being 

 the only language. For a couple of miles the 

 tracking was very easy, and I moved along in 



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