272 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



a montli's leave, and accompany him up the Narbada 

 valley from Jubbulpiir to shoot. The game promised 

 consisted of tigers, bears, sambar, and spotted deer; and 

 I found that all these were really attainable in no small 

 numbers. The sambar and bears lived on the hill ranges 

 on either side of the river; while the spotted deer, as 

 usual, kept to the banks of the river, where a network 

 of ravines, covered with clumps of bamboo, afforded them 

 the plentiful shade and abundance of water they dehght 

 in. In attendance on them was the tiger, who revelled 

 in the abundance of game then congregated about the 

 river. The herds of cattle and buffaloes that were grazing 

 in the valley were seldom touched, excepting in one place, 

 where I found a family of tigers wholly subsisting upon 

 them ; but nearly every day we stumbled on the remains 

 of spotted deer, sambar, and nilgai, which had fallen 

 victims to the destroyer. The destroyer himself, however, 

 kept, with a good deal of success, out of our way. I was 

 too green a hand to hunt him then with the silent per- 

 severance which alone ensures success, and could rarely 

 resist a promising shot at other game on the distant chance 

 of finding a tiger. Nor do I think that Mr. Bamanjee 

 much desired to have very many interviews with his 

 jungle majesty. Spotted deer were in immense numbers, 

 and the bucks were everywhere bellowing along the banks, 

 and in the bamboo-covered ravines that radiate from 

 the river. It was very easy to shoot the poor brutes at 

 that time, the best plan being to embark in a canoe dug 

 out of a single log, and paddle slowly down the reaches 

 a little way from the bank, between daybreak and ten 

 or eleven o'clock. The air of repose worn by the whole 

 scene at that time is scarcely broken by the movement of 

 animal life. The lazy plunge of a crocodile, the eddying 

 rise of a great fish, the hover of a gem-lilfe kingfisher, 

 the easy flight of the dark, square-winged buzzard, all 

 add to, rather than diminish, the sense of quietness in 

 the scene. Immense numbers of peafowl live on the 

 banks. This is the season of their loves, and almost 

 every bare knoll may be seen covered with a flock of 

 them, the hens sitting demurely in the centre, while the 



