THE MAHADEO HILLS 109 



dry wood being never far ofi in an Indian jungle. An 

 elevated place, at the same time sheltered from the wind, 

 should be chosen for the purpose, as the valleys are more 

 malarious at night. A shelter of boughs should always 

 be knocked up, which your wild men will do handsomely 

 in five minutes. I learned more of the simple nature of 

 the forest people during the few hours' chat by the fire 

 on these occasions than I beheve I would have done other- 

 wise in as many years. I think they got attached to me a 

 good deal ; and, though they are not very demonstrative 

 at any time, I was often touched by some simple act of 

 thoughtfulness one would hardly have expected from their 

 untutored natures. 



About the hardest day I had was after a couple of bulls 

 I had seen grazing on the very top of Dhiipgarh, looming 

 against the sky-line like two young elephants in the red 

 sunlight. It was evening when I found them, and, as 

 the spot was inaccessible by stalking, I sent round a couple 

 of Korkiis to move them, while I posted myself on the road 

 they would be most hkely to take down the hill. They 

 went, however, by a pass a few hundred yards further on ; 

 and though I ran over the intervening bare and sHppery 

 rocks as hard as I could to get a shot, I was only in time 

 to see them floundering down the hill-side like two great 

 rocks, and they never pulled up till far down in the blue 

 haze that h\mg over the bottom of the valley they looked 

 scarcely bigger than a couple of crows. As they had not 

 been alarmed by shooting, and would probably be found 

 in the valley next day, I went home and prepared for a 

 long hunt. We took the road round by the great ravine, 

 instead of going over Dhupgarh, because it was rather 

 shorter when the bottom of the vaUey had to be made for, 

 and also because we expected to find another herd on the 

 way. We were disappointed, however, in this, seeing 

 nothing tiU we got to the valley except a bear with her 

 cub, the former of which I shot. Arriving in the valley, 

 we spread about in all directions to look for bison-tracks. 

 The young Thakiir of Puchmurree, the best hunter and 

 tracker in the hills, was unfortunately laid up with a 

 sprain he had got the preceding day; but we picked up 

 two capital bison-trackers out of a lot of Korkiis from a 



