EARLY DAYS IN OUDH 41 
or the Mirror Water, and the lover of the beauties 
of Nature would be well repaid by a visit to this 
spot, even if he obtains no sport with gun or rod. 
The clear, still lake is bounded by precipitous rocks, 
and the strong river flowing from it is broken into 
waves as it passes over the boulders below. After a 
short rapid, across which neither elephant nor boat 
can cross, there is formed a triangular island with its 
apex to the stream, and this divides the waters of the 
Koriala River in the west from those of the Girwa 
River in the east. Thus accident determines the 
supply of water to each stream ; a log adrift in the 
floods may alter in a day the volume of these rivers, 
and it is not till the monsoon is over that any 
estimate of the size of the watercourses during the 
coming winter can be made. Below Shishapani the 
forests of “shisham” and “khair” extend to the south. 
The rising waters bear the floating seeds of these 
species over the submerged islands, and as the floods 
subside germination follows and the islands are 
covered with the tender green of the seedling foliage ; 
then, favoured by the absence of abnormal water-levels 
for a few years, a forest is formed which can with- 
stand all but the fiercest inundations. And thus the 
scenery presents a peculiarly artificial appearance of 
groups and patches of trees, each such group being 
of one age, while no two groups may be of the same 
year of origin. In the spring the brilliant verdure 
of the foliage and the delicate yet intoxicating 
seent of the “shisham” flower will always be re- 
membered in its associations with forest life in North- 
ern India. At the present time permits to enter 
Nepal for tiger-shooting are mostly reserved for high 
