

22 BEARS. 



Mango topes, send-bunds, sugar cane kliets (fields), 

 and groves of Mhowa trees were in great profusion, and 

 large tracts of scrub jungle, studded with isolated hills, 

 and some piles of rocks, afforded cool and shady retreats, 

 during the day, and had evidently been patronised by 

 bears for many years, large mango trees forcing their way 

 up through clefts in the rocks from the ursine deposits- 

 below. 



But, so far as spearing bears was concerned, we were 

 doomed to disappointment, the particular zone of jungle 

 where this was to have been done being deserted by them. 

 The shikari pointed out the maidan, where Nightingale 

 and Hebbert (Horse Artillery) had had several successful 

 mornings' sport with bears returning from their nocturnal 

 rambles but none appeared to us, nor were there any 

 fresh traces in the hills environing this open ground. He 

 (Baliyah) also spent several hours searching for a watch 

 which Hebbert Sahib had lost some years before when 

 riding a bear, but he failed to find it. 



We had, however, some capital sport with the rifle in 

 other parts of the neighbouring country. The first day 

 we went out in the morning, and two bears fell to 

 my rifle, right and left, but without any circumstances 

 of interest : my friends saw no janwars of any kind, 

 although the shikaris declared that the place was full 

 of bears. 



After tiffin we went out for a casual beat to a cairn 

 about four miles off, where a bear was soon dislodged, but 

 took refuge in another pile of boulders, where for two 

 hours we assailed him with fireworks before he could be 

 induced to bolt. He then headed across an open 

 plain, towards a hill about half a mile off, and a vast 

 expenditure of ammunition took place at long ranges, 



