THE TEAK REGION 191 



one, or when anything occurs to interrupt his impetus. 

 I remember when shooting in the Rohilkhund Terai, a 

 hog deer ran the gauntlet of a whole line of elephants. 

 I had fired at him first on the right with a httle rifle carrying 

 a very pecuhar bullet, but we all thought we had to register 

 a miss when he fell to the Joe Manton of old Col. S. on the 

 extreme left of the line; and it was not till we were 

 examining the goodly heap of slain brought in by the pad 

 elephants on our return to camp that I thought of looking 

 for my shot, and found that the death wound was from 

 my rifle after all, as we cut out the little bullet from the 

 top of its shoulder, while the Colonel's round ball had only 

 just grazed its quarter. On another occasion I had fired 

 at a large tiger sneaking through some thin jvmgle in the 

 Betul district. The brute dashed ahead out of sight with 

 loud roars, but presently came wheehng round in a circle, 

 galloped along the bottom of a small ravine, and came 

 up the bank of it right opposite me, as I thought with the 

 determination of making a home charge. As his head 

 appeared over the top I fired at it, at the distance of only 

 some dozen paces, and he tumbled back again to the 

 bottom, where he lay dead. My astonishment was not 

 small to find that I had missed him clean the last time, 

 and that he had died just in the nick of time from the first 

 shot through his shoulders. 



By far the finest sport afiorded by the sambar is when 

 he is regularly stalked in his native wilderness, without 

 either elephant or beaters. I will not waste a word on 

 so vile a practice as that of shooting him at night, when he 

 comes to the crops or drinking places, None but a native 

 shikari, or an European with equally poaching proclivities, 

 would ever think of such a thing. To succeed in stalking, 

 the camp must be pitched as near as possible to where they 

 have been ascertained to resort at night to feed and drink. 

 A party of the aborigines of the place must be entertained 

 to act as scouts, people who thoroughly know the country 

 and the haimts and habits of the deer, and who are not 

 afraid to traverse any part of the jungles in the dark. 

 These must be sent out in couples long before daylight to 

 crown the most commanding hiU-tops in the neighbour- 



