FAVOURITE RESORTS OF GAME. 33 



to the seasons, and traversed by rivers or rivulets never quite 

 dry. The banks of such water-courses, when darkly shaded 

 by rank bushes and grass, present the most tempting lairs by 

 their coolness, and near vicinity to water in plenty; more 

 especially if cultivation, and a few scattered hamlets with 

 their herds be not very distant, the tiger, the panther, the 

 buffalo, the marsh and hog-deer, and the wild hog will be very 

 abundant in these localities ; and it is in such coverts rather 

 than in extensive tree and reed jungles that large game should 

 be sought. I have walked for weeks through the trackless 

 wilderness of hills and woods which lie between the southern 

 frontiers of Sylhet and Cachar and the borders of Chittagong, 

 where wild animals are rarely molested by man, and have 

 been astonished at the paucity of game, and at the oppressive 

 and deathlike silence of the gloomy forests. In these vast 

 wildernesses, the elephant and the " gayal " are numerous, 

 and the true monarchs; the sambur and barking-deer are 

 common ; the python, the wild hog, and the Malayan bear less 

 so ; whereas the tiger and the panther are rarely met with in 

 the deepest solitudes. One may traverse miles of such forests 

 without seeing a living bird or beast, the stillness and deep 

 gloom at mid-day hardly broken by the twitter of a bird, 

 or the chirp of an insect ; there the enemy most to be 

 dreaded and to be guarded against, is neither the crouching 

 tiger nor the monster python, but savage man ; as cruel and 

 as treacherous as the one, and as difficult to detect among the 

 trailing creepers and the undergrowth as the other. 



Among the hills and woods of Santhalia, game of every 

 description is extremely scarce ; in Chota Nagpoor it is cer- 

 tainly more abundant in some parts, such as Manbhoom, 

 Singhboom, and the south-western portions of Lohaduggah ; 

 but in none of them, though well wooded, plentifully diver- 

 sified by hills, rocks, and running streams, and seemingly 

 suitable in every way, is game, whether feathered or furred, 

 as abundant as in the savannahs of the Terai, the swampy 

 plains of Purneah, Maldah, and Dinagepoor, or the grass- 

 covered " churs " of Eungpoor and Mymensingh. 



D 



