160 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



by the American grizzly bear, and how, after receiving three 

 or four well-placed bullets, he will display a vivacit}^ and 

 liveliness of disposition quite remarkable to the Western 

 hunter and the Red Indian. Would that grizzly be equally 

 lively and playful after receiving the same number of two 

 or three-ounce conical or spherical balls, driven with eight 

 or ten drams of good English powder ? I doubt it much, 

 and believe that a bull buffalo, a rhinoceros, or even a tiger 

 would show the aforesaid Western hunter or Red Indian, 

 armed with a 32-bore rifle, sport which would be kept up 

 much longer than by any of his grizzlies, admitting at the 

 same time that the last are very tough customers, as are 

 even our Indian sloth-bears, though far less in bulk. 



Buffaloes appear to be almost as much at home in water 

 as on land, and take readily to the former element if hard 

 pressed by enemies. It was remarked that in the cyclone 

 of 1876 the destruction of the tame herds on the islands at 

 the mouth of the Megna was inconsiderable as compared 

 with that of all other animals, wild or domesticated. 



I was out shooting on one occasion at " Jackson's kotee," 

 in Noakholly, when, sport failing me there, deer becoming 

 scarce, and neither tiger nor panther turning up, I determined 

 on making a long day of it in shooting over the " chur " north 

 of Balamara, and west of Raipoor, some ten miles distant from 

 where I then was, in the ruins of the Company's old Factory, 

 a place of some importance eighty or ninety years ago ; 

 accordingly, the elephants were started off at three o'clock in 

 the morning, and I followed on horseback as soon as day 

 broke, the country not being such as to invite a ride in the 

 dark. Expecting to find nothing more than hog-deer and 

 marsh partridge; a brace of smooth-bores and a light rifle 

 only were taken out that day, with which I had bagged two 

 or three stags, when, to my surprise, a small herd of wild 

 buffaloes was put up, which took at once to the open, desert- 

 ing the patch of low reeds beaten by me. As the elephants 

 showed themselves in the plain, the cows with their calves 

 made off at a lumbering gallop ; the bull of the herd, a mag- 



