In the Sal Forests. 225 



At length the rustlings die away, and not a sound can be 

 heard but the feeble chirping of crickets, an occasional low 

 moan from an owl in the trees across the water, and the 

 remotely-faint rushing of some distant rapid. 



If we have the patience to haunt the sleeping river until 

 the moon shall have crossed the sky to decline towards 

 those wooded hills, those slow-moving monsters will at 

 length return and seek the shore, and the woods that 

 disgorged them earlier in the night will again close 

 mysteriously over their huge forms. 



Perhaps the skirt of that distant thunderstorm may 

 extend and give the slumbering forest a slight shower. That 

 would be well indeed, for by early dawn we should rejoice 

 to find the fresh tracks so patent to our eager gaze. Here 

 is the spot where the herd finally left the river-side ; and, 

 farther on, the immense indentations left by the feet of 

 the master bull. The tracks of the herd lead a broad path 

 away from the river towards the distant open grassy and 

 sapling-studded country, where these pachyderms love to lie 

 during the hot hours of the day ; but the big fellow has made 

 off elsewhere. Twice has he skirted the sandy shore and 

 once entered a secluded back-water, where he rolled in the 

 muddy sand. Here it was that the rain fell during the 

 small hours of the morning, when he climbed the steep 

 bank, and passed round that huge fallen tree, making inland. 



The woods are waking now. A sudden commotion high 

 above our heads, and a little shower of rain-drops ; red 

 Malabar squirrels on the limb of a forest giant, rousing to 

 their daily play up mighty trunks. Those four melodious 

 cuckoo notes whistled now, long after, and in a far distant 

 land they instantly bring us back to that enchanted 

 forest echo through the vistas of tall straight stems 

 before us. Gradually we pass on. Glade land opens out, 



29 



