648 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST [Mar^h j. im. 
tlown (although by (liis tirup lliey ha'l soon uk) and 
went away back to consider- what had better be 
done. We eoncliirled (hat the be*-t thin;^ we could 
do was to rest awhile and relievf\ tlie inner man. 
1 liave hitherto said notliin;^ of a coiipleof coolies 
who had followed us with a welldaden bo.\ con- 
tainin<; a line pie, &c,, which kindly Mik. T 
liad i)acked up for m, and to winch we now sat 
down to ilo justice. After an excellent feed 
and re-li;^litin^' our pipCH, T pro|iosed to 
tack away round thu lull and iry to net 
over, above where the Ibe.v were resting. 
I went away up to wliere we first saw 
them and lay down walchinj; theiu tliroufjli 4lie 
telescope ; tine lieads they all h'ld and did not 
seetu to be aware of their dantjer. 1 waited for 
a (juarter-of an-hour or more, and was ijef^inuint; 
to think T had niislakcn tiie {.'round which in 
fact turned out to be true, but I had nothing 
for it but to wait. Presently they all jump^ 
up and looked rounil. I knew then that T 
had got sight of them. Crack went the rifle, 
and down the slo]ie they all Hew, followed by 
some half dozen others which had been about 
somewhere near, but were not .-een by us at fir.st. 
" UEAO THE CROWD !'" 
was shoutcid to .a cooly who went running down the 
slope, and managed to turn three of them in my 
direction, the other cooly being witli me. We yave 
chase and found one hail got a broken leg, but lie 
easily outdistanced us running and got over 
th'-! ridge to Uie right wliitlier we all pursued 
tliem. However liy the time we got to the riilge, 
they had all disap|)eared, tho.~e untouched having 
evidently gone round the brow of the hill, and 
the wounded Ibex having headed straight down 
the .steep patana-side. As we could make out 
his track, we coni-nlted what had better be done, 
and took a good look round. Presentlj we heard 
the baying of wild dogs away down inthe8teep 
jungle ravine, and came to the conclusion it was 
our wounded buck they were at. It was useless 
trying to get down in time, as we siiould have 
had to make a considerble detour, and by the 
time of our arrival on tlie scene, little or noth- 
ing of our Iliex would have been to the fore. 
So a second time we had to come away empty- 
handed. We concluded our rifle was not of a 
heavy enough calibre to bring the creatures 
down. What I would recommend would be a 
good " Henri-Martini,'' or a Winchester repeater 
with a n^agaziu? holding six or eight cartridges. 
Nothing less will bring them to the ground ; 
a good double express, would I believe, be an 
excellent weapon for Ibex shooting, as it they 
are not shot dead, or so badly wounded that 
t'ley cannot run, they will do their utmost to 
get to the edge of a precipice and wriggle 
themselves over — the fall, whether of 1,000 or 
2,')'i0 feet, being apparently no object— and pos- 
Blily be dashed to pieces at the bottom. Many 
,p,)rtions of the£e hills are almost sheer, bare pre- 
cipices with no foothold whatever, enough to 
make one feel very queer to look down ; at 
a ly rnte I felt it so and was always glad to 
gat back from the edge, and on to safer 
and lesft precipitous ground. By this tinie it 
was about 1 o'clock, and alter a short rest we 
began to descend, picking our way sviih care, 
and eventually getting down a very .steep por- 
tion of our way, and crossing a small stream. 
On the other side we again espied some of our 
game, but this time far below us. However 
we made for them, and after much wriggling 
find crawling on all fours, f managed to get 
shots at two ; but they were U)o near the e>lge 
of the precipice, and both wrigeled thenii-el\ en 
•ver, and must have fallen Borne ooo or leet ; 
we nev-r .-aw them again. In the meantime 
we spied home little chap^ running altout on 
the i-lab-rock. We all went for Iheni, l.ui tliey 
hi.l amongst the Ixiuldem and nearly got the 
better of ux. Eventually we caught one, the 
ollier« gettifig away. Thii, we brontriit home. 
ar<| in the course of a day or two it grew very 
tame, taking mdk by the spoonlul, and wa.* i»iK>n 
not a bit airaid of any one, nor even of doyi-. 
They are curious JiitlV' creatures, very luuch 
like a young goat in wliape, and of a aiejjeli 
colour all over. Well, after our last mi^fort^ine 
we thought it better to wend our way home : 
we concluded we miyht be able to Rcramble 
down the side ot tlie hill. If not, our only 
way would liave been to jxo back, and dowo 
the way «e had come However we proceeded, 
and had not gone far when another herd cauic 
in view. These rushed away down a l<ing;<teei> 
hillside, and crossed a Hat, iijt tlie next ridge, 
standing looking back now and then ; "oo 
we went down, down, ever down, etaning an- 
other lot of them who ran right aero** in 
fi ont of U8. What a chance we thought for « 
good gun or t\v<i ! Jiy this time our Hinmuni- 
tioii had run out, and we could only stand and gaze 
AT THK HKItO 
some (20) or more of them, but they were veiy soon 
out of sight. These werethe last wesiw. Ali<r)/eilier 
we must have .sig'iteil at least 80 or 100 during the 
ramble. Down we went crawling as best we 
couhi. until we got to more eftHy ground ; then 
turned sharp to our left and crept along under 
the precii)ice on which we had been st.mdinK 
an hour or two before. It was very rough 
walking, but at last we came upon an elephant 
path which we followed i;ntil we reached a 
slab rock. This they had evidently funked.* 
and taken a zig zag l.a-k an<l down ihiough a 
large Hat of junijle. We however manafied to get 
across, where the elephants had failed, and kept 
on and on, but very slowly. At last we got oo 
to known ground, a large fiat of patana grass, 
where occasionally planters from (he surround- 
ingdistricts come to camp and go out shooting,— 
an excellent ground, with pl3nty of game, in- 
cluding Sambur, Tiger, Elephants, awl Iliex 
further up. The last named are never seen low 
down ; the little red deer which used to give 
such good sport in Ceylon are also here in 
abundance and an occasional Bear; these how- 
ever being rarely seen. The Ceyb)n Leopard, as 
well as a black species, and the black Wanderoo 
•are plentiful too, in all the jungles ; also beauti- 
ful stiuirrels and fine pigeons. Any one fond of 
sport could get it to his heart's content, in fact 
a paradise for any one who had the time, and 
inclination to camp out. We eventually got back 
at 4 p.m., having spent a most enjoyable day 
far from the mailding crowd, so to speak, of 
coolies. I must not forget the Bis m wh'ch are 
also plentiful in the hilly parts of Travaicae: 
some of these are huge animals, standing 16 
hands and over at the siiouldcr. the head making 
a errand trophy for the sportsman. 
The weatlier since end of December his been 
very enj lyable, more e.'^pcpially to those who 
came through the daily drenching rains of the 
south-west monsoon ; ilien we ha I rain almost 
* (Query.— Can an elephant's footprii:t5 be jtraced 
on a siab-rock?— No doubt the feet kit marks of 
miul or earth on the reck ?— Ed. T.A.) 
