THE NEILGHERRY HILLS. 103 



four children managed to sleep in such a den, with the door tightly 

 closed, was a mystery. 



Three such huts as the above standing close together, and the 

 dairy a little distance away, all enclosed by a low wall of earth 

 about three feet high, constituted Muddimund. Fifty yards away 

 was the buffalo pen, built of small saphngs twelve feet long, like an 

 ordinary rail fence. 



The Toda buffalo is a distinct breed from the domestic buffalo 

 of India generally, being of a lighter build, more active habit, and 

 having homs with much greater elevation, length, curvature, and 

 divergence. He has more flesh on his bones and some hair on 

 his blue hide, but for all that, he, too, is a very ugly specimen of 

 the bovine tiibe. He is " scarey " and sometimes even dangerous in 

 the presence of white men, and the Todas say the herd is always 

 able to defend itself against the tigers and leopards of the Hills. 

 The buffaloes form a regular line of battle, with the largest bulls 

 and best fighters nearest the enemy, and the cows and calves take 

 shelter in the rear of the fighting column. The buffaloes have even 

 been known to rally to the protection of the children herding them. 



For three days we hunted up and down the hills and through 

 the sholas, but with no success. Late one evening we espied a 

 stag sambur feeding near the edge of a dense shola, but just when 

 we were getting fairly within range of him a dense white cloud 

 came sweeping along and hid him completely from our view. 

 Under the obscurity of this we hun'ied up nearer, and when it 

 cleared away at last, we saw, through the driving mist, only the 

 antlers and head of the stag as he stood behind a hill looking over 

 the top, straight toward us. It was our only chance for a shot, for 

 it was almost night, and aiming for the throat, we fired together. 

 As we expected, the stag wheeled around, dashed into the shola 

 and was gone. 



All that the hills lacked in the matter of game and specimens 

 they made up in scenery. Every day our hunting led us along the 

 very edge of the Neilgherry plateau, where the hills end abruptly 

 in a precipitous descent of 4,000 feet to a lower and more level 

 plateau. From one spot in particular the view was subUme. 

 Standing at the end of a lofty ridge, we looked down upon a plain 

 which lay spread out before us like a map, surrounded on three 

 sides by the encircling Neilgherries, and stretching away in front 

 for a good forty miles. Nearest us it was dotted over with tiny 

 houses and cultivated fields, and crossed here and there by a road, 



