98 A Sportswoman in India 



possibly a falling stone, had made the pony shy, and 

 both had gone straight over the precipice together. 



At the top we came to an opening in the forests, 

 the woodsheds, where huge quantities of timber were 

 stored, sawdust carpeted the turf, and great stacks 

 of logs and planks reached to the tree-tops. Echoes 

 resounded through the silent woods. We watched, as 

 Walt Whitman says, " the limber motion of brawny 

 young arms and hips in easy costumes, and the butter- 

 colour'd chips flying off in great flakes and slivers." 



We had sent servants on ahead from Dalhousie with 

 lunch ; and leaving the ponies with them, we walked 

 off our stiffness in an inspection of the forest bungalow 

 two or three miles off: then back to a picnic near the 

 woodsheds. A man in the Woods and Forests Depart- 

 ment must lead a lonely life in such a place, buried in 

 the jungle, with its beasts and their ways and a few 

 natives by way of variation ; but for a sportsman and 

 a lover of Nature, for one who has been overmuch 

 jostled by the world, what better fate? 



We reached the little forest bungalow by tiny, wind- 

 ing paths, slippery with fir-pins, dark with overhanging 

 boughs, very suggestive of a bear or two, and a leopard. 

 At last a clearing showed us daylight and a low 

 building in the middle, out of which emerged a couple 

 of dogs and a bearer. Sheltered by forest on three 

 sides, an opening had been made upon the fourth, and 

 a panoramic view of sixty or seventy miles connected 

 the bungalow and the eternal snows. 



Late that afternoon, after more riding, we found 



