A PERILOUS ADVENTURE. 235 



past M. and me, and escaped. For an instant he was nearly 

 on us, as we sat upon the ground close together, and although 

 we let him have four barrels we never knew the result, 

 since we found no blood on the trail, and he was not put 

 up again in the beat back to the same position. Of course, 

 we ought to have bagged him ; but with the ducking we 

 had got, the subsequent excessive heat, and the long un- 

 interesting drive, we were, I am afraid, more than half asleep. 

 This bear must have approached us very silently, and having 

 made up his mind to push on at all hazards, he charged past 

 us most successfully. 



Mr. Robertson Pughe, of the Bengal Police, who has had 

 much experience in this sport, writes to me : " Some years 

 ago, I was beating a hill in the neighbourhood of grand old 

 Parusnath, when a bear broke on my left. I ran to cut him 

 off, and waited as he came shambling down. I had two steady 

 shots, but before the smoke from the second barrel had 

 cleared, he was on me like a shot, and seizing me by the left 

 thigh with his teeth, he turned me round with a savage 

 growl, and made off down the hill. He had bitten me deeply, 

 and carried off two large pieces of flesh, leaving me bleeding 

 profusely. Thinking he had done for me, I determined on 

 having his life also, and had him driven up again, when he, 

 too, sorely wounded, escaped into a cave, I limping after him 

 as well as I was able ; but before he could be smoked out, 

 I became sick and faint from loss of blood, and had to be 

 carried into camp, slung upon a ' sal ' pole, and from thence 

 eighty miles in a palki to my station, to lie six weeks on my 

 backj the doctors pronouncing my escape a very narrow one, 

 the femoral artery having been saved by a quarter of an 

 inch. Since then, I have more than paid off all scores 

 between Bruin and myself, and although in that instance 

 I failed to take his scalp that day, his body was brought in 

 afterwards by the Santhals. The following year I went again 

 to the same hill, in the month of April, to have my revenge, 

 when there remained but little jungle on the long low ridge 

 to be beaten, and while walking to my post, a Santhal ran 



