46 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE. 



other two, and four small, flat bits of broken earthen-ware. Even 

 as we worked there, several gavials came out upon a sand-bank not 

 more than a hundred and fifty yards below us. 



From that time forward we followed up very systematically the 

 plan of hunting we had inaugurated so successfully on the second 

 day among the gavials. My boatmen proved to be capital fellows 

 every way. They belonged to a hereditary boatman caste, and 

 knew all about navigating the Jumna. They were, without excep- 

 tion, the best watermen I ever had, always willing to do precisely as 

 they were asked, without any questioning or advice, and they never 

 tried to thwart my plans, as most boatmen are prone to do. They 

 were always ready to " go on," "go back," or " go across," without 

 a word, and I believe they would have scuttled the old craft and 

 sent her to the bottom if I had directed them to do so. They soon 

 found that there was no great danger in seizing a wounded gavial 

 by the tail, and by a judicious bestowal of praises and rewards I 

 managed to infuse into them a real esprit de corjys, which increased 

 up to the last. In hunting gavials they ceased to be " gentle Hin- 

 doos," and became active, plucky men, as the following incident will 

 show : 



We came one day to an isolated sand-bar out in the middle of 

 the river, near which there was absolutely no cover on either bank, 

 only wide sand-banks. But this isolated bar was frequented by 

 two or three large gavials, and in order to get a shot, I dug a rifle- 

 pit and threw up a little embankment at the nearest point on the 

 shore. The men were posted as near as possible, while I took up 

 my position in the rifle pit and waited. It was about mid-day, just 

 when the sun was hottest. Its rays beat fiercely down upon me as 

 I lay there in the hot sand, and soon heated my rifle barrel so that 

 I could not hold it unless I filled my hand with freshly dug sand. 

 I wore a solar topee given me by Major Eoss, of which the pith was 

 a good inch in thickness, and which extended far down my back. 

 Without its protection I would probably have received a sunstroke 

 in less than an hour. 



But, fortunately, we are not condemned to endure that baking 

 process more than an hour. At last we see a black line, with an 

 eye at one end of it, lying upon the water out in the middle of the 

 stream. The eye looks about for a moment, and the black line 

 quietly sinks out of sight. Fifteen minutes later the same black 

 line comes up close to the sand-bar, and we see that it is the upper 

 surface of a gavial's head. The old fellow looks about a moment, 



