KILLING TIME. 171 



of that beast's favourite tactics being a sudden charge from 

 concealment on the near approach of a pursuer. Many casual- 

 ties, arising from the neglect of this precaution, have fallen 

 \vithin my own experience, and as an illustration of this habit 

 of the buffalo, the following incident may be narrated. 



I was at one time waiting at one of the steamer depots 

 on the left bank of the Brahmapootra, in the Sibsagor district 

 in Assam, for a boat downwards bound, and on learning that 

 she would not arrive for two days, I looked about for some 

 sport to wile away the time. My bivouac was upon a sandy 

 spit, close to the main stream, cut off from the mainland by a 

 backwater. The spit itself was almost entirely bare of jungle, 

 but there was abundance of it across the back water, upon the 

 high land, consisting of tall stout reeds, recently burnt, and 

 bushes and trees which the fire had scorched or altogether 

 spared. 



Having my battery and three elephants with me (with- 

 out a " howdah," however), I crossed the backwater the 

 morning after my arrival, and explored the jungles around, 

 as well as the great plain 011 the other side of them, without 

 finding any game larger than hog and marsh-deer, and of 

 these but a few, the recent burning of the reeds, still smoking 

 and smouldering in some places, having driven away almost 

 every living creature ; but I noticed that buffaloes and rhi- 

 noceros were in the habit of visiting the locality. 



The following day I was out again till noon, and bagged 

 a couple of hog-deer, some marsh-partridges, and a buffalo out 

 of a herd started from the burnt reeds. On return to camp, 

 I found General Sir C. R., just arrived with some elephants, 

 having shot his way across country from Golaghat without 

 any success as regards big game. 



The next morning we went out together on the assur- 

 ance that our steamer would not arrive before evening ; and 

 since the General was particularly desirous to kill a bull buf- 

 falo, an animal he had never met with, we directed our 

 course to the place where the herd had been put up by me 

 the day before,. We had now with us half-a-dozen elephants, 



