96 BIG-GAME SHOOTING IN UPPER BURMA 



tracker, keen sighted as he is, could not in that 

 thick cover have seen the bull lying down. 

 Neither bison nor tsaing appear to take much 

 notice of monkeys. They are so used to their 

 incessant movement and jabbering that they 

 pay little attention to them. A startled jungle 

 fowl or partridge, however, puts them on the 

 qui vive at once. But what really gave me this 

 tsaing was the fact of our being on old tracks 

 when he was seen. Had he not been observed 

 in the first instance, we would naturally have 

 followed the trail which, after leading more or 

 less straight on for two or three miles, had 

 doubled back parallel to the original tracks. 

 Following it, we would have come face to face 

 with the tsaing, and old as he was, he would 

 almost certainly have heard our approach when 

 within fifteen or twenty yards' distance. Then 

 there would have been the usual snort of derision, 

 followed by a crash as the beast vanished in the 

 undergrowth. By a happy combination of cir- 

 cumstances, that fickle jade Fortune played into 

 my hands in a manner she has seldom done 

 before or since. I may add that the ground 

 was sodden with recent rain, and that I had 

 donned stalking boots as soon as it became 

 evident that the animal was somewhere in that 

 particular jungle. 



This is the only time I have ever been charged 

 in earnest either by bison or tsaing. The 



