3 i2 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



9.30 a.m., and my guide informed me that he did not think we 

 would come up with the animal that day, as we would not be 

 able to travel very quickly, owing to the many difficulties 

 which would be thrown in our way, such as the tracks becom- 

 ing mixed up with those of other animals, a herd of which had 

 been seen in the neighbourhood. 



Some people may imagine that to track an elephant is a 

 very simple matter, and so it is in wet weather, when the 

 ground is wet and soft and the elephant leaves a deep 

 impression. It is a very different matter, however, in dry 

 weather, on hard stony ground or oh hard laterite soil, when 

 the ground is bare and denuded of all vegetation. 



I know from experience that it is really much easier often 

 to track up a solitary gaur or tsine under these circumstances 

 than an elephant, whose flat feet leave hardly any impression. 

 The utmost capabilities of my tracker were on this occasion 

 called into play about an hour after we had taken on the 

 tracks ; in fact, on one occasion, for half-an-hour I almost 

 despaired of ever finding them again, as they had become so 

 mixed up with those of a herd which had been in the 

 vicinity the day before, so that it was almost impossible to 

 distinguish between them. Some of the best Burman shikaries 

 and trackers I have known have been at sea when it came to 

 the tracking up of a solitary bull elephant, but were, on the 

 other hand, in their element when on the trail of a gaur or 

 tsine ; the reason for this being that some hunters made a 

 living by mostly following and shooting elephants, whilst 

 those who were afraid to tackle these monsters stuck to the 

 other game. After making a number of wide detours or casts 

 we did, however, eventually strike the trail, and immediately 

 pushed on again. 



It was now well on to the evening, and, as tracking was 

 made much easier by the ground being softer and covered 

 with more vegetation, I suggested to my hunters that we 

 should push on as quickly as possible, leaving the coolies and 

 servants to follow. This we did, each of us scanning eagerly 

 the ground, with the determination of not again losing the trail. 



After having covered some eighteen miles of country from 

 the time I fired at the elephant, we struck the banks of the 



