350 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



followed. On the other hand the wound made by a 12 or 

 8-bore rifle bullet invariably leaves a big blood-spoor. 



My 8-bore bullet had apparently passed clean through 

 the gaur, as there was blood on either side of the trail. After 

 two miles of steady tracking we came up with the gaur, 

 looking very sick, standing alongside the trunk of a huge teak 

 tree. The distance being about 100 yards, rather a long 

 shot for the 8-bore, I put up the 100 yards sight and, 

 taking a very full sight, fired, aiming for the point of the 

 shoulder. The gaur stood stationary for about five seconds, 

 and then, quivering in every limb, sank slowly to the ground, 

 when he died after a few struggles. The bullet, I afterwards 

 found, had, after piercing the heart, passed through the body 

 and lodged beneath the skin on the other side. It was a 

 fair-sized bull, standing 18 hands 2 inches, with a very 

 good head and horns well ringed or corrugated at the base ; 

 the signs, it is said, of an old bull. 



My camp-followers left for the spot early next day, and 

 returned late in the evening with the head and meat. The 

 latter was cut up into square junks laid on a framework of 

 split bamboos, shaped like a parallelogram, erected some 

 three feet above the ground, and then gradually smoked and 

 dried over a slow log fire. This fire is sometimes maintained 

 for a whole day before the meat has been thoroughly smoked 

 and dried. 



After a sufficient quantity of it has been cured it is put 

 into woven wicker baskets made of thin strips of bamboo, 

 called by the Burmans " kyingyas," and taken away for sale 

 at the end of my shoot to neighbouring villages. It is then 

 sold, my men making as much as 12 annas or even . a 

 rupee per viss a viss is about 2\ Ibs. eventually dividing 

 amongst themselves the proceeds of the sale, amounting to 

 sometimes as much as Rs.3<DO, about ;i8. 



It is by allowing my men to dispose of all the meat of the 

 animals shot by me for their own benefit, and by giving them 

 the use of my transport animals to forward it to neighbouring 

 villages, that I have always been able to obtain their services 

 and get information regarding the whereabouts of game. 

 Kind treatment, and an occasional present of an old coat, 



