106 TWO YEAKS IN THE JUNGLE. 



provisions for the trip, and had been gradual!}' getting drunk evei 

 since early morning. At the last moment he gave us the slip alto- 

 gether, and hid away in the bazaar. My friend spent an hour in 

 searching for him, ■with a native policeman and a stout cane, but he 

 was not to be found, and we started without him. 



We took the road leading north from Ooty to the Segor ghaut 

 and Mysore, and as soon as we were well out of the town it began 

 to rain. For nearly two hours we plodded along through a steady 

 down-pour that completely drenched everything save my two 

 packs, which I had covered ^^ith my watei-proof blankets. Just at 

 dark we reached the Kulhutty bungalow, wet, cold, tired, and hun- 

 gi'y, and only eight miles from Ootacamuud. But we soon had a 

 good fire blazing on the hearth, a steaming pot of chocolate on the 

 table, and dry clothes on ourselves. 



As if to atone for our miserable drenching, the next morning 

 broke clear and sunny, and we lost no time in starting on our way 

 down the pass. Four miles from the Kulhutty bungalow we reached 

 the Segor bungalow, a mere hovel at the foot of the ghaut, elevation 

 twenty-seven hundred and ninety feet. From thence the road lay 

 through a generally level country, thinly covered with low bushes 

 and short, scrubby trees. Quartz rocks were quite abundant along 

 the road, and in one ledge I found a bed of Muscovite mica, which 

 furnished several fine specimens. Six miles from Segor we reached 

 the village of Musnigoorie, which stands on a smooth bed of red- 

 dish poi-phyrite, through which run long, narrow, vertical veins ol 

 quartz, several of which extend lengthwise along the middle of the 

 street. 



After leaving Musnigoorie the jungle grows denser and higher, 

 until it soon becomes a genuine forest, and the road is both hilly 

 and rocky. Late in the evening we crossed the Moyar River and 

 halted for the night at the Tippecadu traveller's bungalow, twenty- 

 two miles from Ooty. The next morning the ponies, which had 

 been tiirned out to graze, were missing, and it was not xmtil 4 p.m. 

 that they were found. To occupy the time, I took my rifle and 

 strolled out into the forest along the river, which I found in places 

 to be composed chiefly of the common bamboo [Bambusa arundi- 

 nacea), which here gi*ows in scattering clumps to a height of forty 

 to sixty feet. While I was walking along, lost in admiration of the 

 first bamboo forest I had ever seen, a large animal suddenly leaped 

 to the ground from a tree a few paces in front of me, flourished a 

 long tail in mid-air, and rushed away through the grass. From the 



