AN EXPLOEATION IN THE FAR EAST. 411 



sawing off the horns, and throwing away the skull, as is often 

 done. The better way is to boil away the flesh, and wait a 

 few days till the horn-sheaths loosen on the bony cores, when 

 they can be taken off, and the cores sawn down, leaving only 

 a few inches to give the set of the horns. In doing this, the 

 wonderful provision for giving requisite strength to the struc- 

 ture, without undue weight, by constructing the bony cores 

 like hollow cells, crossed by stays in every direction, will not 

 fail to be perceived. 



We marched on down the valley of the Jonk through tracts 

 of sal, mostly devastated by dhya* cultivation, to the Mahd- 

 nadi river, and then along it and its tributary, the Arpd, to 

 the little civil station of Bildspur, where we arrived on the 

 28th of April, and began to make arrangements for an ex- 

 pedition to the elephant haunts in the great sal forest to the 

 north of that station. This country had never been explored 

 by Europeans, excepting one small party of sportsmen who, a 

 good many years before, had traversed a part of it and shot 

 an elephant. It was reported to be scarcely inhabited except 

 by a few utterly savage Bhumias ; and it was certain that no 

 supplies of any sort would be procurable. Our first business 

 was, therefore, to hire a large herd of Bunjard bullocks, with 

 their drivers, and load them up with grain ; and such was 

 then the land-locked condition of this fertile country that we 

 purchased as much wheat, gram, and rice as we required at 

 the rate of about 100 lbs. for a shilling ! Five years later the 

 price of all agricultural produce had so greatly risen, owing 

 to large tracts of land to the westward having been turned to 

 the cultivation of cotton, and improvements in the communi- 

 cations, that from 1 6 to 25 lbs. for a shilling had become the 

 usual rate in the same district. 



On the 3rd of May we rode out to Eatanpur, the ancient 



