126 Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



hand, I was able to reach this spot soon enough to see my 

 stag laboriously crossing a spur about 200 yards below me, 

 and as I sat down for a steady shot he halted, nose to the 

 ground. 



"Click /" The "cut-off" had got closed in my hurry, and 

 had prevented a cartridge rising from the magazine when 

 I reloaded. However, this was instantly remedied, and a 

 second later the sight rested once more on that broad 

 dark back. 



This time there was no mistake about it, and the stag, 

 reeling and straining an instant to face the hill, fell on his 

 side and rolled heavily against a tree dead. 



When I reached him I found that the first hit had cut his 

 throat close behind the angle of the jaw, thus accounting 

 for his strange " gambades," while the second had entered 

 his back about the middle, and close to the spine, both 

 being Eley's soft-nosed solid bullets propelled by cordite. 

 His antlers, which were massive and unusually deeply 

 corrugated, gave measurements of 38 1 by 39 inches, 

 9 inches just above the burr, and 7^ round the beam. 



I now left some of the men who were industriously 

 removing from their scanty loin-cloths the vicious black 

 seeds of that annoying vegetable the kussal, or spear-grass 

 to skin the stag and bring in his head ; and, the day being 

 yet young, at the advice of a Korku scout, who had seen a 

 bear, descended to cross the main valley. 



There was a sharp walk of about a mile-and-a-half before 

 me, and I took one of the little paths made by grass-cutters' 

 ponies, winding down a glen to the main stream, and 

 finally reached a spot known as the Jamun Jhira (or "Plum- 

 tree Spring"), a pretty little sylvan nook, where a shallow 

 pool lay along the flat rocks, whitening them with saline 

 incrustations, and a thread of water trickled tinkling into 



