AN EXPLOEATION IN THE PAE EAST 335 



tained a sharp outlook all round, while the buffaloes 

 gazed stupidly at the elephant. I was crouched in grass 

 about three feet high, and could not get any nearer for this 

 singular sentinel. So I remained still, and presently the 

 elephant disappeared in some low jungle, and the herd 

 began agaia to graze. They fed down towards me, and when 

 about seventy yards ofi I fired at the leader, who was 

 standing end on to me, and was raked fore and aft by the 

 heavy hard ball, falling prone, toes upwards, on the ground. 

 Instead of retreating, the herd now gathered about their 

 comrade, and trotted round, snuffing the blood, and looking 

 about for their concealed enemy. The wreathing smoke 

 of my rifle betrayed our position, and it was not without 

 some alarm that I saw them draw up in a semicircle of 

 pawing hoofs and snorting nostrils, surmounted by forty 

 pairs of monstrous horns. My gun-bearer. Peer Khan, 

 and I thought discretion the better part of valour under 

 such circumstances, and espying, some way to our right, 

 the poUarded trunk of a saj tree, we retreated, snake 

 fashion, through the grass, and clambered up it. Getting 

 to the top, I sat on its smooth summit, while Peer Khan 

 roosted crow-Hke on a branch, the only one, a foot or two 

 lower down, I now opened fire on the herd, the first shot 

 from the large rifle almost knocking me ofE my perch with 

 the heavy recoil ; I beheve Peer Khan, who had reloaded it, 

 had put in a double charge of powder. I then fired two 

 rounds from the fourteen-bore, the herd pausing irresolute, 

 and fmaUy breaking into a panic-stricken flight. The balls 

 had knocked the dried mud in clouds from their hides, 

 and one remained standing on the ground, while another 

 lagged, very lame, behind the retreating herd. I went up 

 and finished the fixst, and then tracked up the other a long 

 way tiU it went with the herd into a heavy swamp, when 

 I returned to camp. I did not see, in the confusion, what 

 became of the nilgai ; but he was not with the herd when 

 it retreated. 



Our experience of the wild buffalo was thus different 

 from that of some, who have reported it to be a timid, 

 inoffensive animal. As is the case with most wild beasts, 

 it all depends, I believe, on whether you press them hard 



