220 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



has been placed to attract it. The lion, on seeing the 

 bullock, begins licking its jaws, and gives unmistak- 

 able indications of its appreciation of a good meal, 

 when the poor fellow is rudely undeceived as to what 

 is in store by the crash of a shell or conical bullet into 

 him. Mrs Postans says that in her day (1838) the 

 noblest of the lions frequented the plains, and were 

 hunted on elephants ; but very seldom do they 

 venture on the plains, now that firearms are so 

 abundant. They require to be sought for in their 

 sequestered haunts ; and there elephants are useful, 

 but hardly for the purpose of hunting them, the 

 jungle being so high, and the forest so thick. 



At Bantli, my next halting-place, I was put up in 

 a palace of the ISTawab, surrounded by gardens, and 

 with a fine view over the plain from the upper rooms, 

 which were of great height, and covered with a very 

 fine, white, close chunam, which looked almost like 

 marble. Ladibhai, the Vahivatdar, was very gracious, 

 and mutton-chops were produced which would not 

 have disgraced a city of London dining-house. On 

 the first part of the way up from the sea, the soil 

 had been very thin, light, and cretaceous. It did not 

 seem to be more than a foot or a foot and a half thick, 

 and rested upon gravel ; but about Bantli, and be- 

 tween that place and Junaghar, there was more of a 

 black soil about three feet in depth. The rock every- 

 where was cretaceous sandstone, which seemed here 

 and there to have been exposed to plutonic action. 



