114 THE " BHABER." 



much regret that I bade adieu to a country where I had 

 passed such happy days among its forests and fells, for I then 

 had no idea that I should eventually revisit it and enjoy a 

 repetition of its wild sports. 1 



On arriving at the foot of the mountains, a week's halt had 

 to be made, until the camp equipage for our march through 

 the plains should arrive from the nearest arsenal. This delay 

 I did not at all regret, as, through the kindness of my good 

 friend the Commissioner of the district, I had obtained the use 

 of an elephant, and thus had an opportunity, for the first 

 time, of enjoying a little sport in the " Bhaber," as the vast 

 forests of the Terai are here called. But at that season, from 

 the undergrowth being so thick and high, game is much more 

 difficult to find than late in the spring, after the long rank 

 grass and tall reed-jungle has all been burnt down, except 

 where patches of it, from being too green to ignite, have 

 escaped the ravages of the conflagration. 



It is in such isolated bits of cover, which are often wet and 

 swampy, that tigers and other game may then be found, and 

 more easily beaten out by a line of elephants. 



This wild tract of forest and swamp, however, looked far 

 more beautiful than had it been a blackened waste, as I have 

 since seen it, after being devastated by the jungle fires, 

 kindled by the Taroos and others, to clear the ground for the 

 young grass to spring up and afford fresh pasture for the large 

 herds of cattle that graze there. Wild and impressive as 

 these sylvan solitudes are, there is a monotony about them 

 that, after a time, palls in a manner that mountain scenery 

 never does. 



The human denizens of the Kumaon Terai are, as a rule, an 

 emaciated, wretched-looking set of beings, from the effects of 

 malaria. And, strange as it may seem, if these creatures are 

 deported from a climate which to most people is deadly, to a 

 cooler, and, to others than themselves, a more salubrious one 



1 When I had the good fortune to be appointed to raise an " extra Goorkha 

 Regiment " (now 4th Goorkhas) there, after the Indian Mutiny in 1857. 



