OF TUE OLD WORLD. 250 



the Carders. He recommended us to go to Taketty, 

 and there build a hut as head-quarters, as it was a 

 famous place for elephants, he having killed five 

 tuskers near there atditferent times. As the jungle 

 was impenetrable for our baggage-animals on the 

 top of the mountains, a part of the gang had to go 

 down into the low country, and ascend the moun- 

 tains again by a different ghaut. They, however, 

 managed to do this in one day, arriving at Taketty, 

 which consists of three or four wood-cutters' huts, 

 just before sunset. 



The next day the gang constructed two huts, one 

 for ourselves, and the other for our servants and the 

 ponies, which would have been taken away by tigers 

 in the night had we left them picketed outside. 



M having some magisterial duty to perform in 



the low country, could not accompany us, so we bade 

 hiui adieu, and, under guidance of some of his Carder 

 tribe, joined the gang, whom we found very com- 

 fortably established. The next day, sent down into 

 the low country for six bullock-loads of rice and 

 curry stuff, a dozen sheep, a couple of milch goats, 

 and a gross of fowls, for whose reception we pre- 

 pared places ; after which we made a reconnaissance 

 of the jungle lound about our hut, near which sev- 

 eral old elephant spoors were distinctly visible, and 

 one of the wood-cutters, who accompanied us, told 

 us that some of his people had seen a herd a short 

 distance from their huts at Cawderpuddy, where tin-}- 

 were engaged in cutting timber two days previously. 



