In the Sal Forests. 229 



Slowly, certainly, but with a suspicious tilt, the great 

 sweeping horns turn towards the thin grass that must now 

 cover my co-operator, and so remain motionless. Anon 

 they are gently tossed from side to side in their resumed 

 rile of fly-whisks. What can Dabbi be at ! Some minutes 

 elapse. The great ears are slowly turned forward, then 

 back; then suddenly forward again, with a twitch, and 

 there fix stiffly. 



A tiny dark object, away beyond the couched Bubalus, 

 raises itself a moment in the yellow grass, then drops 

 swiftly. The bull is on his legs instantaneously. What a 

 monster he looks, even at a distance of two hundred yards : 

 those betraying horns now laid back along the huge 

 shoulders, and his stern looming gigantic through the sal 

 saplings a great black rock, immovable as the granite 

 boulders of his native soil ! 



In a threatening attitude he takes a pace or two forward, 

 away from me, and halts again, nose in air. I feel distinct- 

 ly sorry for Dabbi, until reminded of his sprightly activity 

 and ape-like powers of climbing. 



After standing awhile in this attitude, the bull turned and 

 moved suspiciously off, first at a walk, then at a gentle trot, 

 slowing down to a walk again as he entered the fringe of 

 jungle amid which his enemy eagerly awaited his coming. 

 There was a spot where an ant-hill and the butt-end of an 

 enormous fallen tree gave excellent cover, and behind this 

 I had crouched, convinced that the bull would pass within a 

 few yards and afford an easy and deadly shot ; but, when 

 that enormous bulk came into view, to my dismay he had 

 turned, and was making off across rather open ground some 

 hundred and fifty yards distant. 



Anxiously waiting until he had passed behind a heavy 

 clump of bamboos, I made a sudden bolt, and darted for a 



