252 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



We were a party of four " howdahs " with eighteen 

 elephants in all, shooting along the southern bank of the 

 Brahmapootra, in the district of Goalpara in Lower Assam, 

 and had arrived near Luckipoor enjoying splendid sport, and 

 making dai]y miscellaneous bags of buffalo, marsh-deer, hog- 

 deer, pea-fowl, floriken, hares, and partridges, with a tiger or 

 two occasionally ; marching and shooting ten or twelve miles 

 every other day along the left bank of the great river, our 

 tents and baggage were conveyed in boats, close to which 

 we always encamped. On reaching camp near Luckipoor we 

 were greeted with good news of rhinoceros being near at 

 hand, and accordingly the following clay was devoted to their 

 especial pursuit. 



Leaving our tents soon after daybreak, the word was 

 passed for no firing on any other thing than the object of 

 that day's pursuit tigers only excepted ; and in half an hour 

 we were beating with a broad and rather open line, through 

 immense fields of lovely green young grass four or five feet 

 high, in which many marsh and hog-deer were put up and 

 permitted to escape unfired at. Presently we approached the 

 opposite side of the grass, where a bare plain of a mile or two 

 stretched away to the south towards the Garo hills, when 

 three rhinoceros were seen making off ahead of the line, 

 which was then pushed on rapidly. Although their heads 

 and backs showed above the grass, the animals were too dis- 

 tant to be fired at with good effect, and one separating from 

 its companions and breaking out on the right made off into 

 the open, while the other two turning to the left skirted the 

 jungle, seemingly loth to leave its shelter. My post was on 

 the left of the line, with three or four pad elephants beyond 

 me on that Hank, and these being signalled to advance at a 

 run, headed the two remaining animals, so that on my gaining 

 the end of the extensive grass covert, I saw one of the two 

 galloping away over the plain at a great pace ; but the third, 

 a huge male, stood on the outside, undecided in his mind 

 what to do, and half inclined to fight it out. As my elephant 

 stepped out of the higher into some shorter grass, I caught 



