342 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



and was fuU of yarns of his sport. I remember few of 

 them, and was too Hstless at that time to note them down. 

 He showed me a scar received from a man-eating tiger, 

 which he and another had done to death with their bows 

 and arrows. He told me much about the wUd elephants, 

 which wandered all over his own and the neighbouring 

 chieftaincies, their head-quarters being in Matin and 

 Uprora, about twenty-five miles to the north. He only 

 knew of one of these animals having ever been killed by 

 a native. He was a very old male, with a broken tusk, 

 and was shot in the trunk with a " bisar," or poisoned 

 arrow, from a tree by the Bhiimia, whose rice-field he was 

 devastating below. He wandered long in the neighbouring 

 jungle, growing thin and weak, and at last sank down 

 helpless in a water-pool, where he had gone to bathe his 

 miserable body. Then a neighbouring Thakiir came and 

 fired all day into him from his matchlock, two bushels of 

 buUets being taken from his carcase after he expired. 



He had another story of a " loathly worm " that haunts 

 the forests of the Uprora country — slimy and horrid like 

 a great caterpillar, a cubit and a half in thickness, and dull 

 gray in colour, with a scarlet head, to look upon which was 

 death. Many had seen it, but none had lived to teU the 

 tale. On pressing him as to the source of the accurate 

 portrait of the monster he had drawn for me, since aU who 

 had seen it had died, he was at no loss for a reply. The 

 Thakur of Uprora was travelling, with an attendant behind 

 him, when at the crossing of a stream the latter called 

 out, " What is that great slimy caterpillar-Hke monster 

 with a scarlet head, etc. ? " on which his master warned 

 him not to look at it, and did not do so himself. He was 

 too late, however, for the servant was dead in a few 

 moments. 



Evening after evening I sat on the highest point of the 

 hill listening to the incessant music of the " myriad crickets " 

 that seemed to permeate every nook and cranny of the 

 hill and its covering of trees, and gazing over the vast 

 forest prospect spread below. To the south the open plain 

 of Chattis'garh from which we had come, to the north the 

 great green wilderness of the elephant country, dotted here 



