THE NARBADA VALLEY. 55 



I can now discover in England. All his descendants were 

 more or less crossed witli Sussex or cocker blood ; but none of 

 them ever gave tongue till the fourth generation, when symp- 

 toms of it began to appear. On the whole, then, I think I 

 would prefer the heavy Sussex breed. 



On one occasion the whole of my spaniels were very nearly 

 being " wiped out " by one of a class of accidents that must 

 be looked for in India. I was shooting quail in a grainfield 

 near Jubbulpiir, with "Quail," "Snipe," "Nell," and "Jess," 

 when on a sudden they all began to jump violently about, 

 snapping at what seemed to me to be a large rat. But coming 

 nearer I made out that it was a huge cobra, erect on his coil, 

 and striking rioht and left at the dogs. I lost no time in 

 pelting them off with clods of earth, and then cut the brute's 

 head off with a charge of shot ; when I found that the snake 

 had been in the act of swallowing a jat, of which the hind 

 legs and tail were protruding from his jaws, so that his re- 

 peated lunges at the dogs had fortunately been harmless. All 

 these spaniels were famous ratters, and had no doubt been 

 attracted by the cobra's mouthful, for they generally had, like 

 all dogs of any experience in India, a wholesome dread of the 

 snake tribe. I never lost any of these dogs by an accident, 

 though exposed to all the dangers of panthers, hyenas, wolves, 

 snakes, and crocodiles ; and all of them lived to a good age, 

 in excellent health. As with men, English dogs keep healthy 

 enough if properly treated in accordance with the climate. 



Of larger game, the principal animal met with in the settled 

 parts is the black antelope,* which has probably followed the 

 clearings made by the immigrant races. The aversion of this 

 animal to thick uncleared jungle has made it, in the Hindu 

 sacred literature, a type of the Aryan pale, of the land fitted 



* Antelope cervicapra* 



