44 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



^on the slightest alarm. You will aim at him in the centre of 

 the neck, just where it joins the head ; and if you then shoot 

 plumb-centre, but not otherwise, he will never stir. A different 

 shot might eventually perhaps be fatal ; but this alone will 

 prevent his reaching the water and escaping, to float up in a 

 day or two a sickening mass of corruption. Nothing possesses 

 such a frightful, " ancient fish-like smell " as a crocodile that 

 has been dead for even a few hours. You can seldom get near 

 enough to one of these creatures in a boat to kill him with 

 certainty ; and the only certain plans are to watch for them 

 at noon as I have described, or to bait with a noisy puppy 

 dog in the evening, at which time they appear to be most on 

 the feed. 



Few things are more enjoyable than marching along during 

 the cold season in a rich open country like the Narbada valley 

 with a well appointed camp, and plenty of leisure to linger 

 over the numerous objects of interest or amusement presented 

 by such a tract. Very little of this sort of thing fell in the 

 way of the forest officers of those days, however. Our work 

 lay in the depths of distant forests, or at most in the half- re- 

 claimed frontier belt lying between the hills and the plains, 

 where timber transactions generally took place, and the chief 

 dep6ts for forest produce had been established. When by 

 chance our direct route from forest to forest led across such an 

 open region, our movements were as rapid as man and beast 

 could make them ; and at the earliest possible moment we 

 hurried again from the face of civilization, like ghosts at cock- 

 crow, to bury ourselves again in the depths of the wilderness. 

 In after years, when employed in revenue work in a populous 

 district, I saw the reverse of the picture. Marching by fair 

 roads and easy stages, with a duplicate set of canvas houses 

 (for such our large Indian tents really are), one of which goes 



