THE NABBADA VALLEY. 37 



animals cannot carry their loads, and some where they could 

 not proceed at all. But "Junglee"was a camel among 

 camels. Of the low, stout, shaggy breed used by the Cabul 

 merchants, who annually during the cold season hawk the 

 dried fruits of their country over the plains of India, I had 

 found and caught him running wild and ownerless among the 

 hills along the Cane river in Bandelkand. When out shooting 

 I was astonished to see him start out of a thicket, and flee 

 like a deer over rocks and ravines ; and a rare chase we had 

 Sepoys, camel men, and camp followers before we got 

 him into a corner, and bound his sprawling legs and threaten- 

 ing jaws with tent ropes, and led him away between a couple 

 of tame loadsters, to have his nose rebored and be starved into 

 a peaceful return to the uses of his race. He had probably 

 been abandoned by some party of hard-pressed rebels, long 

 enough before I saw him to have become perfectly at home in 

 the jungles, and to have got into first-rate condition. A 

 better beast to scramble over breakneck ground with a heavy 

 load I never saw. Poor Junglee ! he afterwards ended his 

 days under the paw of a tiger in the Betul forests during 

 one of his periodical relapses into the life of freedom he had 

 tasted in the wilds of Bandelkand. 



On the 11th of January, I bade adieu to the pretty little 

 station of Jubbulpur (Jabalpur), and to my comrades of the 

 gallant 25th Punjabees. I was really sorry to see the last of 

 the jovial manly company of Sikhs who composed the regi- 

 ment, one of the first of the force that rose on the ruins of the 

 Bengal army in 1857. But soldiering in India, in time of 

 peace, is truly one of the dreariest of occupations ; and I con- 

 fess I was far from doleful at the prospect of quitting the 

 bondage of parade routine for the free life of the forest ; and 

 to think that- 11 - * * ". : r '. 



