ABOUT SOME DEER. 243 



leather of a stout English shooting-boot, and 

 penetrated to the bone of my ankle, laying me up 

 for several days. 



Cheetal, like all other deer, are very fond of 

 salt, and are in the habit of constantly visiting 

 salt licks, or spots where the earth is strongly 

 impregnated with saline matter. This fact, and 

 their most frequented spots, are well known to 

 the jungle-men. At one of these salt licks I once 

 got five cheetal out of seven shots. I must, 

 however, plead guilty to having shot two hinds, 

 though the other three were stags. It was on 

 this wise. During one of my first trips to the 

 Doon valley, I was out with Juggoo before men- 

 tioned, and he took me to one of these salt licks. 

 It lay between two spurs that projected out from 

 the main range of the Sewalik Hills. The ground 

 ran into a sort of cul de sac, the end terminating 

 abruptly in a mass of rock that rose sheer up for 

 some forty feet. At the base of this was the salt 

 lick. 



Creeping cautiously up to the summit of one of 

 these spurs early one morning, and concealing 

 ourselves behind an old fallen tree, we peered 

 over, and such a sight as met my eyes I shall not 

 easily forget. The whole of the little valley 

 seemed alive with cheetal. There must, I fancy, 

 have been close on a hundred. I was so be- 



R2 



