264 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



dark, and frowning, as if in envy, upon the bright savannah 

 lit up by the warm sun, and rejoicing in the brisk cool 

 breeze. This open space was dotted over by a few trees and 

 bushes, and was somewhat higher than the surrounding forest, 

 slightly undulating, and its sandy soil clothed with a short 

 crisp grass. The general appearance was such as to induce 

 the surmise that during some great cyclone the sea had risen 

 and encroached into the forest, and after destroying it, had 

 retreated again, leaving the surface of the clearance formed 

 into hummocks and dips, resembling, in miniature, hills and 

 valleys. 



Cautiously mounting a sandy ridge I took a glance round 

 without at first detecting any game, but presently made out 

 a herd of several scores of deer under a clump of trees a 

 quarter of a mile off to my left, a head or a pair of antlers 

 now and then showing above the soft grass, in which the 

 animals nestled to enjoy their noonday siesta. Followed by 

 a single gun-carrier I commenced a stalk under cover of the 

 ridge, the sea breeze blowing across my line of advance ; and 

 I had approached the herd within two hundred yards, when 

 a stag and two hinds, rising up suddenly out of some bushes 

 close to me, startled the others, and sent them flying into the 

 jungle on the skirts of which they had been reposing. Not 

 to be baulked altogether, I took the stag in the stern with 

 the smaller rifle and knocked him over, head over heels, but 

 rising up he limped away after his companions with another 

 bullet in his ribs to join the herd to which he no doubt 

 belonged. 



The blood-spattered trail led us into a covert of a kind 

 of dwarf palm, called by the natives " hurtal," which grows 

 ordinarily to the height of five or six feet on the banks of 

 tidal creeks, and on lands saturated with brackish water ; 

 but where we entered, it rose three or four above our heads, 

 so that we walked in the shade of the thick and drooping 

 fronds without difficulty, till having penetrated some way, we 

 got entangled in a net of small muddy " nullahs," up which 

 the flood-tide was gently flowing. After a manful struggle 



