THE MAHADEO HILLS. 115 



had taken. Those were not the days of breech-loaders, and 

 though I had another rifle it was a little behind, leaning 

 against the tree, and before I could get hold of it nothing but 

 the sterns of the " beeves" (as a friend used to call them) were 

 to be seen. When I got it I favoured the bull with both 

 barrels a posteriori, but there was no result. The young 

 Thakiir, who occupied the post on my right, had been more 

 successful ; and when the beaters came up immediately after- 

 wards I found a fine four -year-old bull lying dead, with two 

 of his bullets through the centre of his . neck. All the 

 guns now came dropping in, and gathered in a group round 

 the slain bison. One had seen a bear, another a couple of 

 sambar, and so on. All had fired, and of course hit hard, 

 but the net result was the Thakiir 's beeve, my sambar, and 

 two little "jungle sheep/' as they are called, the proper name 

 being the four-horned antelope.* 



I had never seen a bison before, and though this was only 

 a young chestnut-coloured bull with small horns I was much 

 struck with the bulk and expression of power belonging to 

 the animal. Such was the width of the chest that when 

 lying on the side the upper fore leg projected stiff and 

 straight out from the body, without any tendency towards 

 the ground. The head in particular has a fine highbred, 

 and withal solemn appearance, which is still more noticeable 

 in old bulls. From the eye of a newly slain bison, turned 

 up to the sunlight, comes such a wonderful beam of emerald 

 light as I have seen in the eye of no other animal ; and the 

 skin emits a faint sweet odour as of herbs. 



We tracked the wounded sambar and bison a little way 

 down the valley, the former showing signs of being hard hit, 

 and a little blood was found also on the track of the bull. We 



* T itracer 08 quadricornis. 



I 2 



