134 WILD MEN AND WILD BEASTS. 



found a panther's track in the cypress. We therefore gave 

 up the chinkara-shooting, and went off to the river-bed, 

 which, at this time, was a broad expanse of white sand, with- 

 out any water. 



On either side were strips of cypress. We were posted on 

 the river side of one of these, and our men went round to 

 drive the panther across. They had beat close up to us ; and 

 I had seen nothing but a wild sow, surrounded by a litter of 

 squeakers. I had ceased to expect the panther, and was pick- 

 ing off young shoots from the bush before me, when I saw the 

 beast walking towards me, and within three paces. I was 

 quite startled ; my rifle lay in the hollow of my left arm, and 

 as I jerked it into my hand, the panther sprang to one side. 

 I fired hurriedly and missed. Some bushes intervened ; and, 

 when I next saw him, he was bounding across the open bed 

 of the river. He passed through the cover, and up the oppo- 

 site bank, and was lost in some ravines. Next morning we 

 hunted in vain for his tracks ; we never saw him again. 



I made a note in my memory " Never consider a beat to 

 be over till the last man has cleared out of the covert." 



It was about Christmas, in the year 1855, that we were 

 last camped at Eaanpore. We were greeted one morning on 

 waking by the welcome intelligence of a sounder of hog having 

 been seen in the early dawn entering a field of sugar-canes 

 near our tents. We sent out our own people to verify the 

 statement of the villagers ; and, instead of guns and rifles, 

 boots and spurs were the order of the day. About breakfast 

 time our shikarees returned and reported that they had seen 

 the tracks of several pigs, and that two were marked down in 

 some sugar-canes. We were somewhat doubtful of our horses, 

 for that of my friend, though a stout well-bred Arab, had only 

 recently arrived from the dealer's stables at Bombay, and had 



