194 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
animals that might be disturbed by the advance in 
line had every chance of escape without being 
observed. The grass was a vivid green, and 
occasionally a rush in front showed that some large 
animal had moved, but nothing could be seen. 
This was a wrong system of beating. I was second 
in the line of six guns, the Rajah Suchi Khan upon 
my left; we presently skirted the foot of a range of 
low forest-covered hills, and after a rush in the high 
reeds I observed a couple of sambur deer, including 
a stag, trotting up the hill through the open forest, 
all of which had been recently cleared by fire. A 
right and left shot from Suchi Khan produced no 
effect, but the incident proved that the system of 
beating was entirely wrong, as the game when 
disturbed could evidently steal away and escape 
unseen. Our right flank had now halted at about 
400 yards’ distance as a pivot, upon which the line 
was supposed to turn in order to beat out the swamp 
that was surrounded upon all sides by hills and 
jungles. Suddenly a shot was heard about 200 
yards distant, then another, succeeded by several 
in slow succession in the same locality. I felt sure 
this was a buflalo, and, as the line halted for a few 
minutes, I counted every shot fired until I reached 
the number twenty-one. Before this independent 
firing was completed we continued our advance, 
wheeling round our extreme right, and driving the 
entire morass, moving game, but seeing absolutely 
nothing. Although the jungles had been burnt, the 
valley grass was a bright green, as the bottom 
