Jungle By-Ways in India 



knife-ridge it wanted still three-quarters of an hour 

 to dawn, and we sat down. My word ! It was 

 bitter ! One had got warm going up, but even 

 with a thick sweater the wind from the snows 

 pierced one to the bone. Very silent is it up here 

 in the hour before the dawn in the winter-time. 

 You get none of the familiar sounds which greet 

 and welcome the approach of the sun god in the 

 hot weather. Every thing and every one is roost- 

 ing, and the sun has to rise and shed its warmth 

 around before the feathered songster starts off 

 to seek the early worm. 



As one strained one's eyes round, at last 

 a faint paleing of the opaque darkness made 

 itself felt rather than seen, and soon, very soon 

 in this Eastern land, the flanks of the opposite 

 hills began to jump out of the obscurity, and 

 gradually the shroud rolls off the bottoms of the 

 little cup-shaped valleys. 



This is the long-anticipated moment. Shall 

 we be in luck to-day ? Men whose fortune is good 

 have seen one or more stags grazing within easy 

 range to repay them for their rough climb and 

 shortened night's rest. Shall we ? The glasses 

 come out, and every inch of the forest and grassy 

 slopes are searched most eagerly, but all in vain. 

 Not even a doe is visible. There is nothing for it 

 but to tramp on. The shikari leads the way 

 towards another water-shed, and we have our 

 work cut out for us in following the sambhar 



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