A FRIEND IN NEED. 129 



The return path to Berramtollie led through a sea of green rice-fields ; 

 occasionally skirted oases in the shape of mounds and rounded hills, all 

 closely studded with beautifully straight, tall trees, with large leaves much 

 like the cinchona ; whilst several large sails moving steadily along up the 

 nullahs intersecting the rice -fields had the appearance in the distance of 

 immense white birds. When I got to camp I found an observant peon 

 had marked a pea- fowl to roost in a tree not far away. It was a difficult 

 light to shoot in, but I managed to bring it down with my rifle at sixty 

 yards ; and as I had fowls enough for my own consumption, I made the 

 peon a present of it, with an exhortation to continued vigilance in such 

 matters. 



Next day all the elephants started for Eampoor, and after breakfast I 

 followed in my boat up a nullah, or natural canal, which was about twenty 

 yards wide, four deep, and very prettily shaded with trees. The water was 

 almost dead. We reached Eampoor in the afternoon, and I went out 

 with my friend of yesterday to examine the country. We saw new tracks 

 of buffalo, but nothing else. Next day we again went through plenty of 

 promising jungle, but though my conductor was eager to show sport, he 

 was not an adept at the only method to attain his object with certainty — 

 steady tracking. I therefore returned to breakfast, cogitating upon what 

 to do next, when, just as I had finished, a man came in with news of some 

 buffaloes having grazed in his rice-fields during the night. I scarcely felt 

 inclined to go out again on such information, as the day was hot, and the 

 villagers apparently incapable of finding the animals, but when the man 

 was brought forward I saw at once that he was the right person at last. 

 There was no mistaking him. The experienced sportsman can tell the 

 genuine hunter at a glance. Whatever their race or colour there is a free- 

 masonry amongst sportsmen, and though I could not speak a word of my 

 new friend's language, I could have shaken hands with him at once. His 

 appearance might not have been prepossessing to some. He had a very 

 rough matted head of hair, and a string and a rag round his loins. But 

 he was qiiiet and composed in his manner, though he threw the timid 

 glances of his class, so familiar to me, around him ; and his replies, through 

 an interpreter, confirmed the confidence I felt in him. I at once ordered 

 out five elephants, and gave my guide some tobacco, which delighted him. 

 I regarded him as a brother come in the moment of my sore need. 



Sending the elephants to a point two miles down the nullah, I was 

 rowed to the same place in my floating house. I had no tent, but lived 

 in the cabin of my boat. Mounting Tara Eanee, I followed the new tracker 

 and another man to their fields, where several buffaloes had grazed. There 



I 



