24 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



and his wives counted on rearing a good proportion of 

 the calves and laying in a stock of ghee to be sold at the 

 Naini Tal bazaar, and having plenty of dhai, or thick 

 milk, for the baba log to drink. Still, there came reports 

 from the neighbouring villages of a terrible manswag, 

 or man-eater, who frequented the hills around and carried 

 off occasionally a solitary woman or old man, who had 

 ventured alone to cut grass in the jungle. 



Motee had gone one day early in April to the bazaar on 

 business. His wives were busy, one at home, the other 

 with a sickle cutting the ripe barley in a field close to 

 my camp, little suspecting that danger might lurk in the 

 neighbourhood of so much life and activity. There was 

 one patch of yellow barley, heavy with full grain, still to 

 be cut on a terrace just round the spur of the hillside, 

 beyond which flowed a clear mountain stream, babbling 

 among great rounded rocks and over-arched by dark sal 

 trees. Creepers twined in graceful festoons from tree 

 to tree over the torrent, and the sun's bright rays scarcely 

 penetrated into the deep shade below. Birds innumerable 

 twittered and frisked from branch to branch, their 

 brilliant plumage glancing in the sun. The paradise 

 bird with long fluttering tail, the golden oriole calling with 

 its plaintive whistle, and green parakeets with plum- 

 coloured heads picked at the little figs of the pipal, while 

 troops of jungle fowl like game bantams scuttled among 

 the tree stems. All was peaceful and bright. Luckmee, 

 the young wife, was happy at her nearly finished work, 

 rejoicing that Motee would be pleased on his return to 

 find the com all cut. She grasped the standing corn 

 with one hand, drawing the sickle to cut, stooping, near 

 where a huge rock, all overgrown with ferns and mosses, 

 lay close to the tangled thicket. Lying flat among the 

 ferns, and quite invisible to the quickest eye, the man- 



