A TEOUBLESOME VISITOE. 29 



time the bullocks were taken from the 

 adjacent sheds to another part of the hill, 

 all but one, an old, superannuated lame 

 buffalo, which, being useless, was left by its 

 owner to shift for itself. Having no one to 

 tend it, and perhaps not liking solitude, it 

 came to our huts, and soon became a perfect 

 nuisance ; in the day treading on skins laid 

 out to dry, and at night pulling off the grass 

 thatch from the huts. 



" All attempts to drive it away were in 

 vain, and I sent a message to its owner, 

 saying, if he did not fetch it, I should be 

 obliged to destroy it. He replied that it 

 was useless to him, and being lame, could 

 not walk to the other sheds, and that I 

 might do as I pleased ; but being a Brahmin, 

 he would not tell me plainly to shoot it. I 

 took however his implied consent, and in 

 the evening, on its proceeding, as usual, to 

 pull off the thatch, I ch'ove it a little 

 distance, and put a bullet through its bram. 

 The Chumars stript off and took away the 

 skin the next day, but I would not have 



