S 6 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



not no words could convey more. So I think I might stop 

 with the title of this paper 



"THE CROWS" 



bus. What is there that can be said about them ? Have 

 they not sufficiently cast a shadow on our lives, left their 

 black mark on our pleasantest memories, yea, even their 

 scars on our dispositions and tempers ? Yet it is impossible 

 to pass them over. I can call up no vision of Indian life 

 without crows. Fancy refuses to conjure up the little 

 bungalow at Dustypore in a happy state of crowlessness. 

 And if the mind wanders away to other times and distant 

 scenes, the crow pursues it. It is sitting impudently in the 

 hotel window, it is walking without leave in at the open door 

 of the travellers' bungalow, it is promenading in front of the 

 tent, under the mango tope. Only when in thought we go 

 back to happy rambles away from the hum of men, 



41 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 

 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been," 



is the horrid phantom absent. On the breezy hill-top, with 

 its scented grass, its ferns and wild flowers, down in the 

 solemn ravine, where the " Whistling schoolboy " tunes its 



