MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE SHIKAREES. 287 



attribute, in a measure, to his absence. He would 

 have found some difficulty in assigning any reason ; 

 indeed, when invited to do so by Manajee, was 

 quite unable to explain why he spoke slightingly 

 of the "bundobust," except that three tigers had 

 escaped. This led to some interruption of the har- 

 mony with which the Shikarees had hitherto worked 

 in concert ; and, unknown to their masters, the two 

 arranged that next day each should work on his 

 own account, and not on any combined plan. 



Next morning the tents were struck, and, after an 

 early breakfast, the hunters, by arrangement with 

 the Shikarees, rode leisurely to a spot between the 

 two villages. This being in the vicinity of the 

 river Morun, was deemed a good place at which to 

 wait for the morning's " khubber." 



It was a place they had previously several times 

 passed and noted, being sufficiently distinguishable 

 from the surrounding jungle to render it marked 

 and easily found. A bare, level, open space of 

 hard-caked mud, cracked into fissures, indicated the 

 shallow, dried-up bed of a small pond. In the 

 monsoon and perhaps, in a greatly diminished 

 degree, during a portion of the cold season also 

 the water may have lain to some depth, of two or 

 three feet possibly ; but now the summer heats had 

 evaporated it, and not the slightest moisture was 



