Jungle By- Ways in India 



four hours, and were moving slowly along an 

 elephant path up a little valley, when the same 

 tracker who had previously spoken dropped back 

 and whispered, ' hathi.' The path we were on ran 

 up a small river-terrace bounded by hills and with 

 the stream running on one side, the banks being 

 densely clothed with bamboo clumps. The ter- 

 race itself was covered with the coarse tussocky 

 ' sabai,' or ' babar ' grass, with a few scattered 

 sal trees here and there. At the tracker's whisper 

 we looked up, and there coming down the elephant 

 track, some 150 yards off, was an elephant. We 

 halted and watched him. Slowly he approached 

 us, totally unaware of our presence, picking up 

 the red earth and sand from the path with the 

 tip of his trunk and chucking it over his back. It 

 looked exactly as if a small red hill or gigantic 

 termite heap was moving towards us. 



As he still continued to approach and gave no 

 sign of having winded us, we got off the path and 

 stood behind four small stunted sal trees which 

 happened to grow close to it. The trackers and 

 lunch coolie were placed behind, and we slipped 

 cartridges into our rifles. We were luckily heavily 

 armed ; but the regulations laid down on the 

 Colonel's shooting permit against shooting ele- 

 phants were strict and plain, and he thought 

 it necessary, probably seeing my eagerness, 

 to remind me that he at any rate was not 

 allowed to fire at elephants. No more was I for 



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