170 Leaves from an Indian Jungle. 



really good bison, out of three shot in ten years, and was 

 anxious to secure a head that would take a place of honour 

 on my walls beside good specimens of other Indian game. 

 These hills lie close to the river Tapti. They are some- 

 what remote, and seldom visited by the British sportsman. 



A journey of sixty-five miles over jungle tracks, and a 

 very difficult crossing of the Tapti, which was running 

 down after a heavy flood, took me to the ground I had 

 determined to work. 



I pitched camp on a knoll overlooking a small Korku 

 hamlet, and sent for the local shikaris. There were bison 

 on the higher hills, they said, but they were much scatter- 

 ed now. " Oh, Sahib \ " said one of them. "If you had 

 only been here in the hot weather, you could have shot 

 khandis (large measure) of them down there! " and he 

 indicated a little valley, now green with long swathes of 

 jungle grass. <c There was the only water in all the coun- 

 try side, and in the early morning one could count the 

 bison like kine by tens and by dozens! " 



" How many did you shoot? " I enquired. 



A cunning look stole over his face as he looked at me 

 sharply, but I was nonchalantly lighting a cheroot, and 

 wore an innocent look. " Oh, two or three ! " he allowed ; 

 " but others shot more, and a tame buffalo died in the 

 pool ; so when the ban he las drank there, they died too ! 



" But they mostly died by eating bullets ?" I suggested, 



and the old man acquiesced with a sickly smile. 



I worked those hills as best I could, but never came on 

 a single mark of bison, and on very few of other game. 

 Three four-horned antelope were all I saw during the 

 week I was out. And now comes the gist of my tale. 



I employed two shikaris. The old man I had already 

 conversed with I sent off to look for tracks in one direction ; 



