Pelts 



green patch of shisham copse, now in the brave 

 glory of its spring foUage, standing as a small 

 island in the middle of the nullah bed, here some 

 200 yards broad. Other small islands of this tree, 

 interspersed with the thorny acacia or khair, and 

 often with a dense grass undergrowth, are to be 

 seen in the bed of the river; likely spots to 

 find 'stripes' at home, lying up after his heavy 

 night's meal off the easily killed ' tie up ' (a 

 buffalo in these parts), dozing away the hot hours 

 of the day with the murmuring sound of tinkling 

 water in his ears. To our right, some 50 yards 

 away, is the edge of the sal forest, the trees now 

 clothed in their beautiful vivid green spring 

 leafage. The strip of maidan forest here soon 

 rises up into the closely adjacent foot-hills, those 

 smiling outliers of the Great Himalayan Chain, all 

 now covered with their brilliant spring garment — 

 safe home of the big sambhar stags and the ever- 

 open line of retreat for our tiger if he once gets 

 a notion that we are on his tracks. Behind the 

 smiling foot-hills rise, range on range, the beauti- 

 ful ridges of the Himalaya ; in places clothed with 

 dark black forest, in others the bare slopes covered 

 with a now burnt-up short grass, gold burnished 

 in colour, or tumbling sheer down in some yawn- 

 ing and frowning black beetling cliff. So clear 

 is the atmosphere that the farthest peak appears 

 but a few miles away, whilst over all is the great 

 blue vault of that brilliant intense blue so par- 



215 



