BEATING BEARS FROM A HILL. 233 



Santhals. Accordingly, a cloudy October morning found us at 

 our positions ; S. and I posted among some boulders within 

 fifty paces of each other, and half that distance from the 

 eastern base of the hill ; two others, beyond our flanks, com- 

 manded the sides of it, and L. stood on the west, ready to 

 account for any animals breaking back and making for the 

 heavy coverts on " Pachait." Long ere the drivers had reached 

 the summit, and while their cries were only faintly audible, 

 I espied a full-grown bear daintily picking his way down 

 hill, first round a boulder and then immediately in my front. 

 Bruin took matters coolly and deliberately, pausing a moment 

 now and then to listen to the sounds coming up behind him, 

 turning over a stone here, and snuffing at a bush there, and 

 in this way he may have descended fifty feet in the space of 

 a quarter of an hour in full view, when the shouts of the 

 Santhals, and the rolling of their drums rapidly increasing, 

 he leisurely turned his hind quarters forward, and dropped 

 upon his hind legs below a steep rock, and then made his way 

 down a dry water-course, till he stood fifty yards off upon a 

 boulder, from which I rolled him over dead to the bottom of 

 the hill. As the echo of the shot reverberated along the hill, 

 the din of the Santhal drums and voices became louder, and 

 in five minutes two more bears showed themselves on the hill- 

 side in front of S. and me, making their way rapidly down 

 through the thick bushes. We allowed them to get out clear 

 of the covert, then opening fire, killed one before she reached 

 us, and the other after he had passed between us in his charge 

 some paces behind us. Three full grown bears had fallen to 

 five or six shots, and the beaters had now surmounted the 

 crest of the hill, from which they hurled stones and anathe- 

 mas down the sides, evidently seeing more bears on the move* 

 which we from below could not make out. Presently rifle 

 shots rang out on the right and far away in the rear, and 

 three or four bears were viewed breaking back below the 

 drivers, while a couple of hyenas dashed past us into the 

 open plain. Running quickly to the right, I caught sight of a 

 mass of black fur passing through the thick undergrowth 



