SKILL OF NATIVE TRACKERS. 29 



tribes of American Indians in following a trail is proverbial, bnt I engage 

 to say it cannot excel that of jungle-people in India. Human eyesight is 

 pretty much the same all the world over. It would be incorrect to repre- 

 sent any class of ]3eople, as some writers have done, as able to follow a 

 track over ground where there is no mark discernible to the untrained eye. 

 It is not to be supposed that a print which is visible to an Indian would 

 not be equally so to a European if pointed out to him. The skill of 

 tracking lies in first observing, and reading, what an untrained eye would 

 pass over, or be unable to interpret. 



I know nothing more interesting than to see really good trackers at 

 work. There is a dash about men accustomed to hunt together, and who 

 thoroughly understand the game they are after, which makes sport of what 

 is often the rather tedious part of a chase. Jungle -people in India are 

 under constant necessity to avoid formidable animals, as they have neither 

 the means nor the stomach to oppose them. They thus become preternaturally 

 quick in noting sights and sounds which do not attract the attention of 

 ordinary persons. The slight ruffling of the surface which alone marks, in 

 hard ground, where the tiger's paw has pressed ; the horns of a deer lying 

 in the grass, matching so closely with twigs and undergrowth as to be 

 undistinguishable from them by the inexperienced eye ; the bee, scarcely 

 larger than a house-fly, entering a hole high in a tree overhead — a point of 

 interest to men who spend much of their time in searching for its stores, — 

 alike attract the quiet glance of the Kurraba and Sliolaga. 



In cases where actual footprints fail, trackers are guided in following 

 an animal by broken twigs, displaced blades of grass, dew shaken from the 

 leaves whilst others are covered by it, and other signs. They can also 

 judge with wonderful correctness of the date of different trails. When an 

 animal has been moving about in the same locality for hours, and many 

 different impressions have been left, much skill is required to determine the 

 latest. Some may have been exposed to the burning rays of the sun, others 

 sheltered from it. In such case the latter, though possibly hours older 

 than the former, looks fresher, and would mislead the inexpert. A tiger's 

 track of late the night before and early next morning may easily be con- 

 founded. The necessity of knowing which is wliich is evident. To follow 

 the one would be to go through the many wanderings of his night's prowl 

 in search of food ; the other leads to where he may be found concealed for 

 the day. Other points than its actual appearance aid in forming a correct 

 diagnosis of a track's date. I remember one morning several of my Morlay 

 men and I started early to look up a particular tiger we were anxious to 

 fall in with. We intended to cast about in the most likely places for his 



