THE MAHlDBO HILLS 87 



an excellent supply of it in one of the deep glens a little 

 below the scarp of the plateau. After searching long and 

 wearily for it in vain, and receiving on all hands assurances 

 that such a thing had never been heard of, I was directed 

 to the place by a Korkil whom I incidentally saw in the 

 unwonted occupation of chewing faun, in the composition 

 of which lime has a place. I found a huge block of pure 

 white crystalline limestone jammed in the bottom of this 

 ravine ; and it is curious to conjecture by what fortunate 

 geological process this immense boulder of an article 

 without which building would be impossible at Puch- 

 murree* could have been brought and so conveniently 

 deposited at an elevation of at least 2000 feet above the 

 nearest formation of the kind. Though I believe I have 

 at one time or other been in almost every other ravine in 

 these hills, I never found another piece of limestone but 

 one — a smaller boulder of the same sort, similarly situated, 

 but at a rather lower elevation. 



The young Thakur came back in a day or two, with 

 about half-a-dozen Korkiis from the neighbouring hills, 

 and news of a herd of bison in the Banganga valley, 

 behind and below the high peak of Dhiipgarh ; so I deter- 

 mined to have our grand hunt in that place. Invitations 

 were sent to all the Gond and Korku chiefs in the neigh- 

 bourhood, with their followers, and every available man 

 in the hills was sent for to beat. A store of grain enough 

 to feed them all was sent down to the little hamlet at the 

 bottom of the Rorighat pass, where the beat was expected 

 to end ; and one of the Puchmurree grog-shops was taken 

 bodily down to the same place to supply the drinkables. 



In after days I spent many a long day in the chase of 

 the bison on these splendid hills ; and have also made the 

 acquaintance of the mountain bull in many other parts of 

 the province. Some account of his habits may, therefore, 

 not be out of place here, particularly as they are frequently 

 a good deal misrepresented. And first as to his name. 

 The latest scientific name for him is Gavceus Gaums, but 

 what he is to be called in English is not so easily settled. 

 Sportsmen have unanimously agreed to call him the 

 " Indian Bison," which naturalists object to, as he does 



