58 WILD MEN AND WILD BEASTS. 



A brother officer had been out on leave at the Phoonda 

 Ghaut, where the road from Kolapoor descends the Western 

 Ghauts to the port of Wagotun. He reported well of the 

 prospect of bears, having shot one or two, and badly wounded 

 another, which had escaped. He proposed that I should re- 

 turn with him, so we got ten days' leave and set out. 



It was the early part of the rains, and the weather was 

 cool and pleasant ; we did not, however, find much game. 

 There had been a few bears, but they had been disturbed and 

 had changed their ground, and we found no very fresh marks. 



We shot a few of the small deer known there as " Peesaie." 

 They are about the size of an English hare, very handsome, 

 having sides spotted something like a cheetul. Our shikaree 

 here was Shaik Adam, a very respectable old Mahomedan, and 

 in his younger days he must have been a strong active man. 

 When employed with us he, of course, carried a spare rifle, 

 but his own shooting-iron was peculiar. The barrel, which 

 was of great length, was that of a matchlock ; he had pro- 

 cured an old Government flint lock, and the stock had been 

 fashioned and fitted by some primitive village carpenter. His 

 charge was a handful of coarse native powder, measured with 

 the ramrod in the barrel, and a long plug of lead hammered 

 on a stone to fit the bore. The barrel was of soft metal, and 

 if much knocked about was liable to become bent, a circum- 

 stance which naturally affected its shooting. A bad shot 

 was, however, not unfrequently put down to the evil influence 

 of some Hindoo demon, who was supposed to be employed by 

 Brahmins and Bunneahs to counteract the flesh-eating and 

 life-destroying tendencies of the worthy Shaik. On such 

 occasions a kid was generally presented as a propitiation to 

 the nearest Hindoo shrine, and the musket was handed over 

 to the blacksmith to have the barrel straightened. 



