70 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



off another of the children in the confusion, while the first 

 was usually so injured as to be beyond recovery, they ended, 

 like phlegmatic Hindus as they were, by just letting them 

 take as many of their offspring as they wanted ! An infant 

 of a few years old had thus been carried off the morning of 

 my arrival. It is scarcely credible that I could not at first 

 obtain sufficient beaters to drive the cover where these two 

 atrocious brutes were gorging on their unholy meal. At last a 

 few of the outcaste helots who act as village drudges in those 

 parts were induced to take sticks and accompany my horse- 

 keeper with a hog-spear and my Sikh orderly with his sword, 

 through the belt of grass, while I posted myself behind a 

 tree with a double rifle at the other end. In about five 

 minutes the pair walked leisurely out into an open space 

 within twenty paces of me. They were evidently mother 

 and son ; the latter about three-quarters grown, with a reddish- 

 yellow well-furred coat, and plump appearance ; the mother a 

 lean and grizzled hag, with hideous pendent dugs, and slaver 

 dropping from her disgusting jaws. I gave her the benefit of 

 the first barrel, and dropped her with a shot through both her 

 shoulders. The whelp started off, but the second barrel 

 arrested him also with a bullet in the neck ; and I watched 

 with satisfaction the struggles of the mother till my man 

 came up with the hog-spear, which I defiled by finishing 

 her. In the cover they had come through my men said that 

 their lairs in the grass were numerous, and filled with frag- 

 ments of bones ; so that there was little doubt that the 

 brutes thus so happily disposed of had long been perfectly 

 at home in the neighbourhood of these miserable supersti- 

 tious villagers. 



Dogs that are in the way of hunting jackals will readily 

 pursue a wolf, so long as he runs away. But- the wolf 



