THE NARBADA VALLEY. 69 



of wolves, one of which seized the victim by the neck from 

 behind, preventing outcry, while the other, coming swiftly up, 

 tore out the entrails in front. These confirmed man-eaters 

 are described as having been exceedingly wary, and fully able 

 to discriminate between a helpless victim and an armed man. 

 My own experience of wolves does not record an instance of 

 their attacking an adult human being ; but I have known 

 many places where children were regularly carried off by them. 

 Superstition frequently prevents the natives from protecting 

 themselves or retaliating on the brutes. In 1861 1 was march- 

 ing through a small village on the borders of the Damoh dis- 

 trict, and accidentally heard that for months past a pair of 

 waives had carried off a child every few days, from the centre 

 of the village and in broad daylight. No attempt whatever 

 had been made to kill them, though their haunts were perfectly 

 well known, and lay not a quarter of a mile from the village. 

 A shapeless stone representing the goddess Devi, under a 

 neighbouring tree, had instead been daubed with vermillion, 

 and liberally propitiated with cocoa nuts and rice ! Their 

 plan of attack was uniform and simple. The village stood on 

 the slope of a hill, at the foot of which ran the bed of a stream 

 thickly fringed with grass and bushes. The main street of the 

 village, where children were always at play, ran down the 

 slope of the hill ; and while one of the wolves, which was 

 smaller than the other, would ensconce itself among some low 

 bushes between the village and the bottom of the hill, the 

 other would go round to the top, and, watching an opportu- 

 nity, race down through the street, picking up a child by the 

 way, and making off with it to the thick cover in the nala. 

 At first the people used to pursue, and sometimes made the 

 marauder drop his prey ; but, as they said, finding that in 

 that case* the companion wolf usually succeeded* in carrying 



