156 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



return to our tents at noon or a little before it ; then to lie up 

 till evening, when we strolled about gun in hand till dark. 



One very sultry afternoon information arrived that three 

 buffaloes were standing under a tree in the open plain a mile 

 or two from camp ; whereupon mounting our horses we sallied 

 out about four o'clock, taking a good battery and half-a- 

 dozen attendants with the usual necessaries of sport and 

 provender, and after a short ride over the hard baked rice 

 fields espied the buffaloes; clearly young bachelors of full 

 growth, who had formed a "chummery" and lived on the 

 outskirts of the big herd, into which they were refused ad- 

 mittance by the master bull through jealousy, or for some 

 breach of bovine etiquette. However that may be, there 

 they were, standing in the shade of a tree on the bare and 

 parched plain, staring with out-stretched necks in three 

 different directions, and clearly uncomfortable in their minds 

 as quite out of their proper place on such a waterless plain 

 on a scorching day, longing for a muddy pool, in search of 

 which they had no doubt strayed to where they then were. 

 Under cover of a line of bushes a quarter of a mile distant 

 from them, our plan of attack was arranged, which was to 

 approach within a moderate rifle range on hands and knees, 

 keeping well to leeward as we fortunately then stood, and 

 afterwards, under shelter of two or three bushes which grew 

 between them and us, facilitating our stalk to give them the 

 contents of our rifles, and then mounting as rapidly as we 

 could, to pursue them with our smooth bores. 



Accordingly taking a gun bearer a-piece, we started upon 

 our tiresome stalk over the dry hard ground, rifle in hand, 

 getting a little cover under the low ridges which divide the 

 fields, till the bushes were gained, and then having arrived 

 within a hundred and twenty or thirty yards of the bulls, we 

 sat down to get our breath. 



As has been remarked before, the buffaloes were uneasy 

 and quite prepared for a run ; moreover, there was not a shrub 

 or mound behind which we could hope to approach closer. 

 We resolved therefore to open fire as soon as our hands grew 



