130 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA. 



his companion had gone off up the hill in the opposite direc- 

 tion. We decided to follow the latter, as it led more nearly 

 in the direction of home. The wilderness of bamboo-covered 

 hills and deep intervening rocky-bottomed or swampy dells, 

 over and through which we carried that trail till the sun was 

 getting low, is beyond description. Every now and then we 

 thought we were just upon him, freshly cropped bamboos and 

 droppings showing that he was not far in front. But he had 

 never stopped for long. This restlessness I afterwards found to 

 be the habit of bison which have recently been disturbed. He 

 was evidently making off steadily for some, distant retreat. 

 We started several herds of sambar and solitary stags, and 

 once a bear bustled out of a nala we were crossing, and 

 bundled off down the hill-side ; but we were bent on nobler 

 game and durst not fire at them. By evening we had got 

 right to the further side of the great ravine beyond Jambo- 

 Dwip, and the peak of Dhupgarh glowed pink and distant in 

 the rays of the declining sun. We were descending a long 

 slope among thin trees and high yellow grass, and I was a 

 little ahead of the rest, when I suddenly saw the head and 

 horns of a bison looking at me over a low thicket, and was 

 putting up my rifle to fire when, with a loud snort, the owner 

 wheeled round, and plunging noisily down the hill disap- 

 peared. This snort, which sounds like a strong expulsion of 

 air through the nostrils, is very commonly uttered by bison 

 when suddenly disturbed, and is the only sound I ever heard 

 from them, except a low menacing moan, which I have heard 

 a bull utter when suspicious of approaching danger, and the 

 quivering bellow which they sometimes emit in common with 

 most other animals when in articulo. I ran to the edge of 

 what proved to be a deepish ravine full of bamboos, and was 

 just in time to see a small herd of six or seven cows and 



