138 THE EASTEEN HUNTEES. 



the petty repairs necessary. It may be that the 

 day did not pass away without some quiet thought 

 and reading ; but no one of them paraded his re- 

 flections, or considered it necessary to obtrude them 

 on his companions. 



The tents were pitched under a magnificent pee- 

 pul, sufficiently wide-spreading and umbrageous to 

 give shelter to the servants' tents, as well as 

 their own ; and the small canvas dwellings looked 

 dwarfed, under the huge limbs and against the 

 downward shoots and vast trunk of the noble tree. 

 It stood in solitary majesty on a rising ground in a 

 little hill-encircled valley, which was cleared and 

 cultivated. The nullah, a couple of hundred yards 

 away, washed the base of a range of hills, and 

 followed their contour. It was in the upper parts of 

 this nullah, where it clove its way through the hills 

 and was fed by the numerous ravines which seamed 

 them, that tigers were looked for. All the neighbour- 

 ing hills were reported to be the resort of bears ; 

 and samber and cheetul were also obtainable in 

 places, especially, it was said, down the valley. The 

 horses were picketed under a smaller tree, and the 

 camels were sent to the vicinity of the village, a third 

 of a mile off. Towards evening the three friends 

 took a walk, and ascended one of the nearest emi- 

 nences, with the object of obtaining a partial view 



