376 SHOOT A BEAR BEFORE SPECTATORS. 



up towards us, but without seeing us owing to a sharp turning. We should 

 have met face to face in another instant round the corner had I not happened 

 to fire at the bears at that moment. I never saw the panther ; it escaped 

 in the confusion. M. persisted in a wild-goose chase after it, whilst I set 

 to work, well contented, to skin my bears. They had no fat on them. 



In the cool of the evening my men and I walked down the ravine to 

 the lake, where I had a refreshing wash, and thence returned to Sakrapatam, 

 three miles. I never neglect to take a towel, dry flannel-shirt, and a piece 

 of soap with me on all shooting-days. Personal comfort, and the benefit to 

 health in being able to exchange a wringing wet shirt for a dry one, are thus 

 easily secured. I was only out for four days this trip, and kept my score 

 up to a bear a-day, with which I was quite satisfied. 



I once shot a bear which I should have been sorry to have lost, though 

 I came near doing so, for there were a number of spectators of the scene. 

 It happened near the temple on the summit of the BiUiga-rungun hiUs. I 

 was encamped there in December 1874, when one afternoon two men came 

 from the temple, which is perched on the edge of a precipice of some two 

 hundred feet of sheer rock, in company with a cluster of houses of the 

 employees attached to it, from the Brahmin priest to the humble sweepers 

 of its courtyard, to say that a bear was feeding in an open space below the 

 rock. The patch in question had been cleared for cultivation, and in it 

 were some manure-heaps in which Bruin was now grubbing for the larvae of 

 beetles. 



We had half a mile to descend from my camp to get at him. All the 

 people living in the temple, and some low-country folk who had come up 

 to worship, had assembled on the rock on hearing that the Sahib had gone 

 forth to slay a bear ; and as my gun-bearers and I rapidly descended a path 

 round the foot of the precipice, I saw the goodly body of spectators, com- 

 prehending a number of nut-brown beauties, to fail before whom would be 

 ruination. The grass was very high and dry in the forest round the clear- 

 ing. I did not know the ground weU, and the man who was leading us 

 was not much of a shikarie. It thus came to pass that I was introduced 

 to the bear with much less ceremony than I could have wished. " There 

 he is ! see him ! " said our guide as he ushered me suddenly into the open 

 space. I did see him, and what was less satisfactory, he saw me. The 

 noise of our approach in the long grass had attracted his attention before 

 we appeared. I made a too hurried shot, especially as there were some 

 twigs between us, and away the bear went into the undergrowth. Madness ! 

 and all those ladies looking on ! I raced after him, and nearly fell over 

 the brute in the long grass at the edge of the clearing. He had not seen 



