Under the Jdmuns* 113 



attractive moods 1 One is carried away, as it were, to some 

 tremendously distant era, when we all were children of the 

 forest, dependant on the good earth in much more direct 

 fashion than we seem to be now ; when the risings of the 

 sun and moon, the passing of clouds, a crackle in the 

 shadow of the trees, a stealthy step in the dark all seem 

 to have been more intimately bound up with man's very 

 existence. This is the harking back of the soul of man to 

 prehistoric influences I 



Time in machdns often passes wonderfully quickly. 

 I had looked at my watch, and was surprised to find it past 

 nine o'clock. A jungle path ran along the edge of the 

 little clearing in which stood my trees, and down this came 

 a flitting shape, halted, tripped on again to a sound like 

 light clicking of castanets. A khdkar ! But I have never 

 satisfied myself as to whether this sound proceeds from the 

 little creature's tongue or hoofs. Later on, two small 

 animals, civets perhaps, played about under the far 

 jdmtin tree. About midnight I was straining my eyes to 

 make out a large colourless form that followed the same 

 path down which the barking deer had come. It moved 

 steadily, slowly, keeping to the shadows, too deli- 

 berate for anything but a tiger or panther. It disap- 

 peared gradually towards a neck of land leading to a higher 

 portion of plateau. Shortly after this there was a distant 

 throaty noise, the rattling rough voice common alike to 

 big boars, bears, tigers and panthers, and, growing quickly 

 bigger in the full moonlight, an old bear came rushing 

 helter-skelter past my tree. Trundling rapidly along, he 

 entered the forest beyond, and came to a halt. Not a 

 sound ensued for about a minute. Then he gave a few 

 loud indignant sniffs, and moved away through the rustling 

 dry leaves. 



