AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 409 



the heavy hard ball, falling prone, toes upwards, on the ground. 

 Instead of retreating, the herd now gathered about their com- 

 rade, and trotted round, snuffing the blood, and looking about 

 for their concealed enemy. The wreathing smoke of my rifle 

 betrayed our position, and it was not without some alarm 

 that I saw them draw up in a semicircle of pawing hoofs and 

 snorting nostrils, surmounted by forty pairs of monstrous 

 horns. My gun-bearer, Peer Kh&n, and I thought discretion 

 the better part of valour under such circumstances, and espy- 

 ing, some way to our right, the pollarded trunk of a saj tree, 

 we retreated, snake fashion, through the grass, and clambered 

 up it. Getting to the top, I sat on its smooth summit, while 

 Peer Khan roosted crow-like on a branch, the only one, a foot 

 or two lower down. I now opened fire on the herd, the first 

 shot from the large rifle almost knocking me off my perch 

 with the heavy recoil ; I believe Peer Khdn, who had reloaded 

 it, had put in a double charge of powder. I then fired two 

 rounds from the fourteen-bore, the herd pausing irresolute, 

 and finally breaking into panic-stricken flight. The bal]s had 

 knocked the dried mud in clouds from their hides, and one 

 remained standing on the ground, while another lagged, very 

 lame, behind the retreating herd. I went up and finished the 

 first, and then tracked up the other a long way, till it went 

 with the herd into a heavy swamp, when I returned to camp. 

 I did not see in the confusion what became of the nilgdi ; but 

 he was not with the herd when it retreated. 



Our experience of the wild buffalo was thus different from 

 that of some, who have reported it to be a timid, inoffensive 

 animal. As is the case with most wild beasts, it all depends, 

 I believe, on whether you press them hard or not ; and probably 

 many might be slaughtered at long ranges without even elicit- 

 ing a charge. If followed up on foot, I believe the buffalo to 



