HISTORY AND COUNTRY 13 



to ride through. The rider hangs in the boughs 

 and the pig goes past the stem. When only seven 

 or eight feet high, or when growing in clumps, it 

 makes very sporting hunting. It is the delight 

 of the simple villager to cut it, leaving stakes a foot 

 long, as hard and as sharp as a spear. 



Winding through the country in all directions 

 are streams and j heels. The streams are called 

 bourrh gungas (old beds of the river). Generally 

 deep and full of long slimy reeds, they take a bold 

 horseman to cross them. The j heels are swamps 

 with quicksands, water, and long rushes, the haunt 

 of pig and duck. Some are miles long. 



Either j heels or bourrh gungas are really the 

 pig's points, and add to the charm and difficulty 

 of a run. 



When an animal gets into them it is almost 

 impossible to get him out, unless it is a dry year. 



My friend Z, a well-known big game hunter, told 

 me that recently he was after a tiger with a married 

 man — the latter, I misdoubt me, a rabbit. They 

 wounded a tiger, who got into a jheel too boggy 

 for their elephants to go into. Z proposed to 

 go in on foot, for it was a good tiger. The other 

 stoutly refused, alleging matrimony ; so he remained 

 on his elephant while Z went in on foot. " But, 

 my dear fellow," said I, " how the devil could you 

 expect to see him ? " " Oh," said Z, " that was 

 quite simple. I went on till I could not see, then I 

 bent down a layer of grass with my rifle till I could 

 see, and so got on." He found the tiger dead. 



We occasionally meet quicksands in our country, 

 but I have never seen any one killed in them. I 

 found a cow caught in one once in the jungle. She 

 was only a few feet away from the edge, and only 



