266 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



northern or farthest end, where we rested awhile and re- 

 connoitred. 



Our movements having been extremely noiseless (through 

 a polite desire not to disturb the siesta of any tigers which 

 might be reposing in that neighbourhood), we had gained 

 unseen and unheard a spot which commanded a view across 

 the open, but the day being far advanced, all animals had 

 taken to the shelter of the woods, and not one showed itself ; 

 nevertheless we silently skirted the bushes and " hurtal " on 

 the northern side of the clearance, intending to return to the 

 beach by the eastern. I now remarked, for the first time, 

 certain tracks which I recognised as those of rhinoceros, and 

 not a few either, and some quite fresh, as of that morning. 

 Quickly and silently exchanging the 12 for the 10-bore rifle 

 loaded with steel-tipped conicals, I moved cautiously ahead 

 attended by one man only, carrying the other rifle and 

 the gun, one on each shoulder, the rest of the party fol- 

 lowing some distance behind, and in this manner the north- 

 east angle of the clearance was nearly reached, when a sight 

 which caught my eyes, caused me to drop down on my hands 

 and knees behind a bush, my gun-carrier at the same time 

 flat on his face, whispering softly " elephants! " He had never 

 before seen a rhinoceros or the picture of one. 



On the margin of a mud-hole twenty or thirty feet in 

 diameter stood a huge rhinoceros in deep contemplation of 

 two shapeless slate-coloured lumps just showing above the 

 muddy water ; in other words, two companions enjoying a 

 mud-bath, while he, having had his, as his well-plastered hide 

 testified, was basking in the sun half asleep, working his ears 

 and stamping with a foot now and then as flies pestered him. 

 The mud-hole was near the jungle on the north, and fully 

 two hundred yards from our ambuscade ; too far for a shot at 

 so tough a customer, and there was no cover between us 

 beyond a few rushes and a little scrub, too thin and low 

 to afford concealment. Backing out, therefore, a little dis- 

 tance, I entered the bushes, which formed a fringe of the 

 forest all round, and charily making a little sweep, not alto- 



