292 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



hunting. But I am now certain that the brute I destroyed 

 subsequently was the real malefactor even there, as killing 

 again commenced after we had left, and all loss to human 

 life did not cease till the day I finally disposed of him. 



He had not been heard of for a week or two when I came 

 into his country, and pitched my camp in a splendid mango 

 grove near the large village of LokartaMe, on the Moran river. 

 Here I was again laid up through over-using my sprained 

 tendon ; but a better place in which to pass the long hot days 

 of forced inactivity could not have been found. The bare 

 brown country outside was entirely shut out by the long droop- 

 ing branches of the huge mango-trees, interlaced overhead in a 

 grateful canopy, and loaded with the half-ripe fruit pendent 

 on their long tendril-like stalks ; while beneath them short 

 glimpses were seen of the bright clear waters of the Moran 

 stealing over their pebbly bed. The green mangoes, cooked 

 in a variety of ways, furnished a grateful and cooling addition 

 to the table ; and the whole grove was alive with a vast 

 variety of bird and insect life, in the observation of which 

 many an hour that would otherwise have flown slowly by was 

 passed. A colony of the lively chirping little grey-striped 

 squirrel lived in every tree, and from morning to night per- 

 meated the whole grove with their incessant gambols. My 

 dogs would have died of ennui, I believe, but for the unremit- 

 ting sport they had in stalking and chasing these unattain- 

 able creatures, whose fashion of letting them get within two 

 inches of them while they calmly sat up and ate a fallen 

 mango, and then whisking up and sitting just half a foot out 

 of reach, jerking their long tails and rapping out a long chirp 

 of defiance, seemed highly to provoke them. Clouds of 

 little green ring-necked paroquets flew from tree to tree, 

 clambering over and under and in every direction through 



