PREPARATIONS FOR A HUNT. 339 



river, and of which I then had charge. These panthers were represented to 

 have killed most of the dogs in the villages for some distance round, and to 

 he very destructive among the ryots' sheep, goats, and light cattle. It was 

 the height of the hot weather, and I had not had any shooting to speak of 

 for some time, so I was delighted at this chance of breaking the monotony 

 of everyday work. I sent two trusty shikaries with the villagers to bring 

 more certain news of the panthers' retreats, and their account being favour- 

 able I asked the ryots to collect a hundred men next day, and promised 

 to ride over to their village, Eamanhully, that evening after dinner, so as 

 to be ready to commence early next morning. 



At 8 P.M. I started for my tent near the village. In front four coolies 

 carried my cot and bedding on their heads. After them came my cook and 

 " boy " — a youth of about fifty — and a couple of coolies carrying the cook- 

 ing utensils. In front of me two shikaries bore my rifle and smooth-bore, 

 their polished barrels glancing brightly in the moonlight. Then myself on 

 pony-back. Behind, a horse-keeper and two dog-boys leading my dogs. 

 Another man with my shot-gun brought up the rear. We travelled by 

 the footpaths across fields till we came in sight of my tent, pitched under a 

 fine banian-tree, and here I found the hundred men ordered duly collected. 

 When I rode up they blew a loud blast on a horn, and whilst the cook was 

 getting coffee ready I sat outside and talked with their headmen about to- 

 morrow's arrangements. Most of the beaters had rusty spears — heirlooms 

 of a time when this part of the country was better wooded, and their fore- 

 fathers used them in killing wild pigs — and these, long unused, they now 

 busied themselves in cleaning. They had also got together a good number 

 of nets, which they were overhauling and patching by the firelight. 



By 6 A.M. next morning the beaters had eaten their morsels of ragi- 

 bread, and we were on our way to the cover. We found the night's tracks 

 of the panthers near it, and the fresh skulls and remains of two dogs which, 

 despite the scarcity of those animals in the villages near, they had managed 

 to surprise during their nocturnal prowHngs. The cover was a strip of 

 bush-jungle about haK a mile long, and nowhere more than a quarter wide. 

 It was bordered on one side by the Tippoor channel and open rice-fields, 

 then bare and dry ; and on the other three the country was open. The 

 cover was not very dense, as most of the bushes had lost their leaves under 

 the influence of the hot winds and scorching sun of March, and the 

 panthers' only strongholds were a few evergreen thickets which afforded 

 cool lying during the hot hours of the day. At one place, about the middle, 

 the cover narrowed very muck As we were not certain in which half the 

 panthers then were, we set up a line of nets across the narrow part, whilst, 



