402 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



propelled by eight drachms of powder, against his tough hide, 

 and he fell upon his knees. Bang went several more of our 

 shots, and he stumbled off dead lame and very much crest- 

 fallen. Following him up with the dogs, who were now 

 baying round him, we overhauled him in an open field, and 

 repeated the dose again and again till he fell heavily against 

 the embankment of a rice-field, and then, stepping up, I put 

 a three-ounce shell behind his shoulder, and with a quiver of 

 the limbs he gave it up. He was a fine animal, in the prime 

 of life, and we were amazed at the bulk and strength ex- 

 hibited by his massive form. The horns were each three feet 

 ten inches long, which is nearly the extreme length they ever 

 attain here.* He had sixteen bullets in him before he died, 

 several of large calibre, and at close quarters. "We were, how- 

 ever, shooting with bullets of plain lead, and I found that my 

 first two-ounce ball, propelled by eight drachms of powder, 

 had flattened out on his shoulder, pulverising the bones, how- 

 ever, and completely laming him. After this we shot with 

 hardened projectiles. 



Next day we embarked in a long canoe, hollowed from the 

 stem of a mighty sal tree, on the bosom of the MriMnadi, 

 and sailed down to Sambalpiir in two days and a night. It 

 was mighty exciting work, the stream passing at intervals 

 over long rapids, where the water, broken into many channels, 

 rushed between narrow banks overhung with bushes, the boat- 

 men steering the canoe with long poles in the most dexterous 

 manner, now warding her bows from a rock on which the 

 stream broke in a sheet of foam, then prostrating themselves 

 at the bottom of the boat to avoid the sweep of the branches 

 while the canoe shot through some narrow passage, and pre- 



* Fossil horns of much larger size have been found in the Narbada gravels, 

 along with bones of the hippopotamus, &c. 



