FOLLOWING UP A RHINOCEROS 171 



this Shan, and never better pleased than when smoking away 

 at a long Shan pipe and drinking raw spirits. 



I was armed on this occasion with only an old single '450 

 sporting Martini-Henry carbine, which belonged at one time 

 to poor Tucker of the police, as daring a sportsman and as 

 good a shot as Burma has ever seen, and a double 12-bore 

 shot-gun by Joseph Lang, which burned a maximum charge 

 of 4^ drams of powder, and carried a spherical ball with great 

 precision and penetration up to 30 or 40 yards. 



After reaching the outlying spurs of the Shwe-u-taung 

 range we struck the Tunkachoung stream, along whose banks 

 we walked. As luck would have it, we had not gone a quarter 

 of a mile before Moung Hpe, jumping down into the sandy 

 bed of the stream, exclaimed " Thakin, thakin, kyi-ba-thee 

 ma, kyau-kyi-ya, ah-thit gane ma net saw zaw thaw-ge-de " 

 (Sir, sir, look here, fresh rhino tracks ; the animal passed 

 early this morning). On examining the tracks I noticed that 

 the water in them was still a little clouded at the bottom, and 

 that they must be very fresh tracks. I knew that Moung 

 Hpe very rarely made a mistake as to the freshness of a 

 track, and I was convinced, from the decided way he had 

 spoken about the tracks, that he was quite certain in his own 

 mind that they had been recently made. 



We decided to wait the arrival of our camp-followers before 

 taking on the tracks, as there was a suitable piece of ground 

 for pitching camp on the banks of the stream, and I wanted 

 to warn them about making any noise which might disturV 

 the rhino. 



After waiting about an hour and a half our followers turned 

 up, when we informed them of the fresh tracks, and after 

 cautioning every one not to cut down bamboos or make any 

 preparations for chopping firewood, etc., till they had heard me 

 fire, we started off on the trail. 



The ground in the neighbourhood was very hilly, and at 

 times we had to push our way through cane-jungle and over 

 swampy ground. 



After covering some two miles of country the track 

 showed that the animal had been feeding round in circles, 

 1 All rhinoceros feed in circles. F. T. P. 



