Horns 



the hills, and started out in search of a herd of 

 bison reported to be in the neighbourhood. The 

 bright silvery face of the lady of the night was 

 hidden behind thick banks of clouds which had 

 welled up from the sea-board the evening before, 

 and a thick, wet river-mist enveloped everything, 

 the trees standing up out of it like dark, wakeful 

 sentinels keeping watch and ward over the 

 marches of the animal world. The effluvia rising 

 from the damp, sodden jungle would have made 

 the most rabid amongst the disciples of the 

 Anopheles creed change his views as to the sole 

 source of the malaria fiend. 



For an hour and more we plodded on in the 

 darkness, floundering through mire or stumbling 

 into the deep imprints left by wild elephants, 

 bison, and animals of the many descriptions which 

 comprised the fauna of this sportsman's paradise. 

 ' Such,' one thought, ' must have been the state 

 of the water-sodden globe when the animals 

 issued from the Ark at the bidding of the greatest 

 of mythological animal-tamers.' 



The dawn broke slowly, almost unwillingly, 

 and the light struggled fitfully through the dense 

 mist. This latter, however, lightened perceptibly 

 as one got farther and farther away from the 

 stream, and as daylight dissipated the gloom 

 we could see that we had entered a dense bamboo 

 forest, the ground beneath our feet being more or 

 less of a morass. Less than a mile of this, and we 



137 



