270 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



ence to water makes it extremely difficult to bring them 

 to book; and, indeed, panthers are far more generally 

 met with by accident than secured by regiilar hunting. 

 When beating with elephants they are very rarely found, 

 considering their numbers; but they must be frequently 

 passed at a short distance, unobserved, in this kind of 

 hunting. I was hunting for a tigress and cubs near 

 Khapa, on the Lawa river, in Betiil ; their tracks of a few 

 days old led into a deep fissure in the rocky banks of the 

 river, above which I went, leaving the elephant below, 

 and threw in stones from the edge. Some way up I saw 

 a large panther steal out at the head, and sneak across 

 the plain. He was out of shot, and I followed on his 

 tracks, which were clear enough for a few hundred yards, 

 till, at the crossing of a small rocky nala, they disappeared. 

 I could not make it out, and was returning to the elephant, 

 when I saw the driver making signals. He had followed 

 me up above, and had seen the panther sneak back, 

 along the little fiala, which led into the top of the ravine, 

 and re-enter the latter. I then went and placed myself 

 so as to command the top of the ravine, and sent people 

 below to fling in stones, and presently the panther broke 

 again at the same place, this time galloping away openly 

 across the plain. I missed with both barrels of my rifle, 

 but turned him over with a lucky shot from a smooth- 

 bore, at more than two hundred yards. I then went 

 up to him on the elephant, and he made feeble attempts 

 to rise and come at me, but he was too far gone to succeed. 

 The panther will charge an elephant with the greatest 

 ferocity. Near Sambalpur, a party of us were beating 

 a bamboo cover for pigs, with a view to the sticking 

 thereof, my elephant accompanying the beaters, when a 

 shout from the latter announced that they had stumbled 

 on a panther. They took to trees, and I got on the 

 elephant to turn him out, while the others exchanged 

 their hog-spears for rifles, and surrounded the place on 

 trees. She got up before me, bounding away over the 

 low bamboos, and I struck her on the rump with a light 

 breech-loading gun as she disappeared. Several shots 

 from the trees failed to stop her, and she took refuge 



