378 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



the next half-a-dozen miles, that there was far too much blood 

 for a wound which in the end would become fatal, and I was 

 beginning to think that it might only be a severe flesh wound, 

 in which case we would have a very long, stern chase, not to 

 speak of the gaur being on the qui vive when we came up 

 with him. It was twelve o'clock when I fired the shot, and 

 my hunters had warned me that if I wanted to reach camp 

 before dark we would have to return at once. This wasn't 

 good enough, so I told them I wasn't afraid to sleep out in 

 the jungle, and that I was determined to bag the bull, con- 

 sidering he was such a huge animal, and had already been 

 wounded. I informed them emphatically, therefore, before 

 going any further on the tracks, that they were not to attempt 

 to dissuade me from going on, as I had quite made up my 

 mind to follow up the gaur till I killed it. Tracking was 

 now easy work, as there were numerous traces of blood on 

 the grass, ground, and bushes en route for the next nine miles 

 or so ; we moved along at the rate of quite three and a half 

 to four miles an hour as fast, in fact, as we could possibly 

 travel. At times, of course, we were delayed, and had some 

 difficulty in finding the tracks when there did not seem to 

 be the same flow of' blood, and the animal travelled over 

 hard and stony ground. 



Once or twice it was very trying work, sometimes plumping 

 down into a gorge and wading over a stream, then up a steep, 

 densely-wooded ridge, or anon scrambling down a steep hill- 

 side, thickly strewn with undergrowth and bamboos, the stems 

 of the latter lying about interlaced with one another pell-mell 

 all over the place, impeding our movements at times very 

 considerably. All this, together with the intense itching to 

 the skin set up on one's arms, legs, and face from coming in 

 contact with spear grass and the fine hair of the bamboos, 

 was most uncomfortable in the extreme. And what made 

 life still more unbearable on these occasions was the minute 

 parasites, or ticks, which, when a nest of them had been dis- 

 turbed by the sportsman whilst moving along, crawl all over 

 his person, and cling to him like leeches, after embedding 

 their forceps into the skin, to remain there until picked out 

 carefully by the hand. Sometimes a nest of hornets or red 



