66 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
as preparing to exert their utmost strength, they 
tore up the ground with their horns, plunged and 
roared, their eye-halls at the same time projecting 
from the sockets with a savage stare and flashing 
with the most portentous fury. They ran wildly 
round the area for more than a minute before they 
came in contact, gradually narrowing the circuit as 
if collecting themselves for the onslaught ; each watch- 
ing to take his adversary at an advantage. At length 
they met each other full in front, darted forward with 
astonishing celerity, and tremendous indeed was the 
shock ! Both staggered for an instant but bore the 
concussion without giving way, when their horns be- 
came locked and then commenced the grand struggle 
for victory. Fierce as the onset had been, it did not 
appear in the slightest degree to have diminished the 
energies of these pugnacious animals. On the con- 
trary, without wounding each other and their horns 
continuing locked, they displayed wonderful strength 
and dexterity, each preventing the other from goring 
him ; so that the contest was really far less terrible 
than might have been anticipated from the manner in 
which they commenced the encounter- They were 
occupied full twenty minutes in this energetic struggle 
without disengaging their horns, exerting all the while 
their utmost strength to cast one another upon the 
ground. Alternately retreating and advancing, as their 
powers relaxed or recurred, the earth flew from their 
heels in showers while they pressed their hard heads 
together with still more determined obstinacy and with 
the might which rage added to their ordinary strength. 
At length the weaker began to retreat, and as he re- 
