Fourteen Thousand Feet High 209 



waistcloth. Each was provided with a good stout 

 stick ; but a stick is, after all, remarkably poor protec- 

 tion against the charge of any big animal, and perhaps 

 it was small wonder that they beat very badly, keeping 

 together in twos and threes instead of spreading out 

 singly. Three were provided with rough drums tom- 

 toms which might be heard miles off. 



The whole hundred and fifty were arrant cowards, 

 and nothing but the lure of annas (for which a native 

 would sell his soul) would have induced one of them 

 to come with us. Certainly the roll of natives who 

 have been injured and killed when beating is a long 

 one ; but as a rule they suffer entirely from their own 

 want of proper caution and lack of common sense. 



S. and I had a couple of tats, and rode along at a 

 walk to the scene of the first honk (beat), our army 

 of beaters going on before us. Before we were quite 

 in the jungle they were all sent on ahead in two 

 parties with the headman and another native. S. and 

 I left the ponies ; and preceded by Lalla and the 

 chota shikari^ we crept and scrambled along by tiny 

 paths through the undergrowth, now forcing our 

 way under branches, now scaling slopes which the 

 pine-needles made slippery as ice. 



Lalla had, of course, had khubr (tidings) beforehand 

 that a bear had been seen going into this particular 

 patch. He pointed out the tracks of one in some 

 soft mud along the path : " Hdrpat !" (" Bear ! ") It 

 was really a most human footmark, exceedingly like 

 a very much enlarged native's. 



