446 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



the bones, take the hide and cut it up into long strips and 

 roast them ovef a charcoal fire, and eat them much as 

 Europeans do the crackling of a pig. Each rhinoceros re- 

 presents a money value of, I was told, Rs.5o. In two 

 days these villagers had five rhinoceros equal to 25 gratis, 

 yet when we wished to move camp, every villager had dis- 

 appeared, and we could not obtain a single coolie without 

 sending miles away to the Mouzadar. I paid for all our 

 supplies myself daily, to prevent our under-strappers taking 

 " dustoorie " or blackmail. We paid what they asked without 

 haggling, yet I never met with anything but ingratitude from 

 these people. I need give no further details of this trip. We 

 shot enough deer for our wants, and saw hundreds ; but they 

 were principally does and a few brockets : the stags, having 

 shed their horns, were in hiding. We also shot a few buffaloes 

 if they got in the way, or were inclined to dispute our right of 

 way, or if we came across one with an exceptionally large 

 pair of horns. 



On arrival at Rungiah I found that my overseer Subrooden 

 had just shot on foot a very large tiger. After carefully 

 skinning him we threw out the body, and within less than a 

 quarter of an hour the vultures had picked it clean. 



In February 1868 I had to march up to Deopani, some 

 eighty miles beyond Nowgong, to meet the new Superintending 

 Engineer, Sam Davis. I had fair sport, with indifferent luck. 

 At Lowqua-ghat I wounded a lot of rhinoceros, but lost most 

 of them. On the 25th I was in want of venison for camp 

 use, and went to some land higher than the surrounding plain, 

 where marsh deer were abundant. In rounding a patch of 

 unburnt grass, just in front of me, and about 50 yards off, I 

 saw the heads of three tigers, close together, looking in my 

 direction. Neither the mahout nor the elephant had noticed 

 them, so bidding the mahout to stop the elephant and to keep 

 her steady, I took a deliberate shoulder-shot at the nearest ; 

 the smoke hung, but a tigress galloped off to my right, and 

 a smaller one bolted much in the same direction ; what had 

 become of the third I did not see ; but as the tigress went off 

 growling and roaring, I came to the conclusion she was the 

 one I had fired at, and gave her another shot and rolled her 



