BULLET AND SHOT 



Until nearly midday we came upon no fresh 

 tracks of bison, nor did we see any game whatever, 

 except some sambur deer and muntjac at none 

 of which did we get a shot. 



About midday, however, we came upon tracks 

 made during the previous night by a herd of bison. 

 As the grass was then so short that the animals 

 were likely to travel far, and as it was moreover 

 so late in the day, W. did not consider that these 

 tracks were worth following, and we therefore left 

 them to look for fresher signs of the game. 



We chanced to come across, and to capture, 

 a regular "wild man of the woods," whom we en- 

 countered most opportunely. We suddenly heard 

 a slight noise which the trackers declared was 

 made by a bison, and with the utmost care, and 

 after taking all possible precautions against alarm- 

 ing the expected game, we stealthily crept towards 

 the locality in which we had heard it ; and there we 

 found not the longed-for bison but a wild and 

 utterly uncultivated jungle inhabitant, who, with 

 a conical basket on his back, was searching for, 

 and digging up roots (the sustenance of his kind 

 and of the wild boar), whose first impulse on seeing 

 us was to bolt into the depths of the forest. A 

 little reassuring, however, upon the part of the 

 jungle-men who accompanied us, and who were 

 only his more cultivated brethren though they 

 differed from him in appearance far less than does 

 a town "masher" from a country bumpkin showed 

 him that we were neither elephants nor tigers, and 

 that we required not his blood, but that of a bison ; 



48 



