A FINE BEAR. 371 



Had I had a second rifle, or more cartridges, I would have given the 

 bears a better chance for their lives by startling them before firing, but I 

 could make no such allowance, situated as we were, and I commenced with 

 right and left behind the shoulders of two of them. The uproar that 

 ensued on this sudden alarm may be imagined. The unwounded one 

 and one of the others fell to at each other with horrible yells of fear, the 

 third going a few feet, where it fell dead. Before the fight had lasted half 

 a minute the unwounded one found it had a corpse in its arms. Having 

 anything but a clear idea of the awful misfortune that had robbed it in one 

 fell moment of its two companions, and had occasioned a most sulphurous 

 smell all round, it made off with lamentations, whilst one of the exploded 

 cases had got jammed in the express and I could not extract it. However, 

 I at last got a fresh cartridge in, and over the bear went down the hill in a 

 number of summersaults, till it was brought up by a young tree, where it 

 died in a few moments, 



A low whistle informed the trackers at the foot of the hill, who could 

 not see what had occurred for the forest, that they might advance, and 

 they soon came panting to the top, delighted at the turn our unlucky day 

 had taken. But this was not to be the last of our good fortune. We had 

 just got the trio on to the pad-elephant that had accompanied us, and the 

 trackers were laughing over the fusilading and cries of the wounded by 

 which they had been so suddenly and pleasantly startled, when we heard 

 the simulated barking of a spotted-deer ; and on our replying, Kara, a Sho- 

 laga, joined us with news of a large male bear marked down two miles away, 

 I have forgotten to mention that Gorrava and Kara had been despatched in 

 the morning to try and find this bear, an old fellow that had given us a 

 great deal of trouble for two or three days, and had successfully eluded us 

 owing to want of rain and consequent difficulty of tracking. They had 

 now found him, and Kara had been running about the jungle all alone 

 since mid-day, searching for us. The firing had reached his ears, and he 

 was now soon heading our party to the place where the bear was asleep. 

 We sent the elephant home with the three bears. 



Gorrava met us when close to the spot, much relieved by our arrival, 

 after his long and anxious watch over the sleeping beast, which, he said, was 

 still asleep and undisturbed by the firing. Gorrava, Jaffer, and I now went 

 to where he was lying on a flat rock overshadowed by a single tree. He 

 was a magnificent bear, both in size and perfection of coat, I asked Gorrava 

 to step up and shout into his ear, promising to knock him over as he got up 

 to reply, but he did not fancy the commission ; so we roused him with a stone, 

 and I shot him as he came open-mouthed in our direction, and when within 



