AN EXPLORATION IN THE FAR EAST. 425 



circumscribed by the never-ending array of great grey stems 

 of the sal, that I soon found I had entirely lost my way, while 

 the mid-day sun, hanging like a globe of glowing silver right 

 overhead, threw only vertical shadows, which afforded no 

 guide to the points of the compass. I was riding on an 

 elephant, and we wandered on for some hours through glade 

 after glade and clump after clump of the sal trees, each exactly 

 like the one before it, till at last we emerged into a little open 

 space, where a few tall naked stems of sal trees killed by ring- 

 ing stood up from among a thick copse of bushes sprung from 

 the roots of the cleared forest. In the middle was a small 

 Bhumia hamlet of a few huts of bamboo basket-work, sur- 

 rounded by a fence of the same material. We marched up 

 to the little wicket-gate of this enclosure, and the barking of 

 a dog brought out the two or three inhabitants. To stare 

 wildly like startled deer at the amazing sight of an elephant 

 ridden by a white man, fly over the fence with a shriek, and 

 plunge into the thick copse-wood of the little clearing, was 

 the work of a moment. But I could not do without a guide 

 to regain the road, and pushed in the elephant after them. It 

 was just for all the world like beating hog-deer out of thick 

 bush-cover, the naked black savages lying close in the thickets 

 till the elephant put her foot almost on the top of them, when 

 they bolted out and ran crouching across to another patch. I 

 thought we would never catch one, until the man behind me 

 slipped down the elephant's tail and ran round, intercepting 

 a lad in the act of leaving the last of the underwood for the 

 open forest. When laid hold of he struggled a little, but soon 

 resigned himself, trembling in every limb, to his fate. It was 

 many minutes before we could get him to speak at all, a blank 

 shake of the head meeting every question before he could 

 have heard it. At last, after much reassuring and comforting, 



