Gordon Casserly

An Indian jungle—The trees—Creepers—Orchids—The undergrowth—On an elephant in the jungle—Forcing a passage—Wild bees—Red ants—A lost river—A sambhur hind—Spiders—Jungle fowl—A stag—Hallal—Wounded beasts—A halt—Skinning the stag—Ticks—Butcher apprentices—Natural rope—Water in the air—Pani bel—Trail of wild elephants—Their habits—An impudent monkey—An adventure with a rogue elephant—Fire lines—Wild dogs—A giant squirrel—The barking deer—A good bag—Spotted deer—Protective colouring—Dangerous beasts—Natives' dread of bears—A bison calf—The fascination of the forest—The generous jungle—Wild vegetables—Natural products—A home in the trees—Forest Lodge the First—Destroyed by a wild elephant—Its successor—A luncheon-party in the air—The salt lick—Discovery of a coal mine—A monkey's parliament—The jungle by night.

From the dense tangled undergrowth the great trees lift their bare stems, each striving to push its leafy crown through the thick canopy of foliage and get its share of the sun. The huge trunks are devoid of branches for many feet above the ground; but around them twist giant creepers which strangle them in close embrace and sink their coils deep into the bark. Here and there a tree, killed by the cruel pressure, stands withered and lifeless but still held up by the murderous parasite. From bole to bole these creepers, thick as a ship's hawser, swing in festoons, coiling and writhing around each other in tangled confusion. Tree-trunk and bough are matted with the glossy green leaves and trails of mauve and white blossoms of innumerable orchids. The trees are not the slender palms that fill the pictures of tropical jungles by untravelled artists, but the giants of the forest—huge sal and teak trees and straight-stemmed simal with its buttressed trunk star-shaped in section with its curious projecting flanges.

Through the leafy canopy high overhead the sunlight can scarcely filter, and fills the forest with a pleasant green gloom. The undergrowth is dense and rank—tangled and thorny bushes, high grass, shrubs covered with great bell-shaped white flowers—so thick that a man on foot must hack his way through it. But here and there are open glades where the ground is covered with tall bracken. Near the hills and in the damper jungle to the south the bamboo grows extensively. Beside the river-beds are patches of elephant grass, eight to ten feet high, with feathered plumes six feet higher still. This is so strong and dense as to be almost impenetrable to men, but everywhere through it wild elephants have made paths. Wherever the big trees have been felled and the sun can reach the ground the vegetation grows more luxuriantly. And, in the southern belt of the forest, where the water from the hills rises to the surface again, the jungle is wilder and more tropical. Here are huge tree-ferns, the under sides of the fronds studded with long and sharp thorns. Cane brakes, through which none but the heaviest and strongest animals can make their way, abound.

Through the tangled confusion of undergrowth and twisted creepers my elephant forces a passage with swaying stride, as a steamer ploughs her way through a heavy sea and shoulders the waves aside. I am sitting on Khartoum's pad near the mahout perched astride her neck, guiding her by the pressure of his feet behind her huge flapping ears. A network of leafy branches of low trees bound together by lianas bars her progress. At a word she lifts her trunk and tears it down, while the mahout hacks at bough and creeper with his kukri or heavy, curved knife. As she moves on she plucks a small branch and strikes her sides and stomach with it to drive off the flies which are annoying her. For thick as her skin is, yet the insects which prey on her can pierce it and drive her frantic. And once, feeling a sudden pain in my instep, I looked at my foot and discovered an elephant fly biting through a lace hole in my boot. Khartoum, having driven off the pests temporarily, lifts the branch to her mouth and chews it, wood and all. Bechan, her mahout, espies a small creeper which is highly esteemed by the natives as a febrifuge and is considered a good tonic for elephants. So he directs her attention to it. Out shoots the snake-like trunk and tears it from the tree around which it is growing; and, crunching it with enjoyment, she strides on through the undergrowth. Suddenly Bechan, in evident alarm, kicks her violently behind the left ear and beats her thick skull with the heavy iron goad he carries, the ankus, a short crook with a sharp spike at the end. Khartoum stops short, then moves off to the right. Thinking that he has seen some dangerous wild animal I whisper in Hindustani, "What is it, Bechan?" "Bees," he says shortly and points apparently to a lump of mud hanging from a low branch right in our former path. Then I understand that he would be far less alarmed at the sight of a tiger. For a swarm of wild bees is regarded with terrified respect in India. The lump of mud is a nest; and, had we continued on our original course and brushed against it, we would have been promptly attacked by a cloud of these irritable little insects whose stings have killed many a man. So we prudently give the nest a wide berth. The wild beasts of the forest are not its only dangers. As again Khartoum tears her way through some low-hanging branches, I feel a sudden sting and burning pain in the back of my bare neck. I put my hand to the spot and my fingers close on a big red ant which, knocked from a bough, has fallen on me and is avenging its being disturbed by burying its venomous little fangs in my flesh. Though I crush it, the pain of its bite lingers for hours. Sometimes one dislodges a number of these insects when forcing a passage through dense jungle; and they at once attack the man or animal they alight on. So it is necessary to keep a sharp look-out for them as well as for bees. Nor are these the only perils that lurk in the trees. Though in the jungle serpents do not hang by their tails from every branch, as we read in the books of wonderful adventures that delighted our boyhood, still there is supposed to be one poisonous snake in the Terai which lies along the branches, and if dislodged strikes the disturber with deadly fang. I fortunately never saw one; though in another place I have shot a viper in a tree.

We plod steadily on through the jungle. A gleam of daylight between the stems of the trees shows that we are approaching a nullah. Khartoum comes to a stop on the edge of the steep bank of a broad and empty river-bed. After the gloom of the forest the bright transition into the glaring sunlight is dazzling. To the right I can now see the mountains towering above us; and, two thousand feet up, on the dark face of the hills, the three Picquet Towers of Buxa shine out in the sun. At our feet on the white sand lie huge rounded rocks which have been rolled down from the mountains by the furious torrents of the last rainy season. The river-bed is dry now; but were we to follow it a few miles to the south, we would find at first an occasional pool and then further on the water appearing above the surface and flowing on in a gradually increasing stream. For these smaller rivers are lost underground in the boulder formation near the foot of the hills and rise again ten miles further south.

Our elephant slips and stumbles over the polished, rounded rocks until she reaches the opposite bank. Up it she climbs at so steep an angle that to avoid sliding off I have to lie at full length along the pad and hold on to the front edge of it until she regains level ground. We pass from the glare of the sunlight into the cool shade of the forest, and the trees close around us and shut off the mountains from our view. As we push our way through the undergrowth the mahout stops the elephant suddenly. "Sambhur!" he whispers. Following the direction of his outstretched arm my eyes see nothing at first but the tangled vegetation, the straight tree-trunks and the curving festoons of creepers. But gradually they rest on a warm patch of colour and I make out the form of a deer scarcely visible in the deep shadows. "Maddi" (a female) grunts Bechan disgustedly and urges on his elephant. For he knows the Sahibs', to him, ridiculous forest law, which ordains that females are not to be slain, although their flesh is more toothsome than that of a tough old stag.

It is a sambhur hind. Apparently aware of her immunity she stands watching us unconcernedly. Accustomed to the wild species, other animals allow tame elephants to approach close to them until they discover the presence of human beings on their backs. So this hind looks calmly at Khartoum. Her long ears twitch restlessly, but otherwise she is motionless; and I can admire her graceful form and the rich brown colour of her hide at my ease. But at last it dawns on her that there is something wrong about our elephant. She swings round and crashes off through the undergrowth and is lost to sight in a moment. And we resume our course.

Across our path from bush to bush great spiders have spun their webs; and Khartoum, pushing through them, has accumulated so many layers of them across her face as to blind her. So the mahout leans down and tears them off. These spiders are huge black insects measuring several inches from tip to tip; and their webs are stout and strong almost as linen.

Something scuttling over the fallen leaves in the undergrowth draws my attention and I raise my rifle, only to lower it when, with a frightened squawk, a jungle hen flutters up out of the bushes and flies away among the trees. These birds are the progenitors of our ordinary barnyard fowl, and so like them that once close to Santrabari, when out with a shot-gun, I let several hens pass me unscathed, under the impression that they were fowls belonging to our mahouts. And when in the heart of the forest I first heard the cocks crowing I thought that we were near a village. In Northern India these jungle cocks are beautifully plumaged with red, yellow, and dark green feathers and long tails. In Southern India they are speckled black and white with a little yellow. When in the forest villages the tame roosters crow, their challenge is taken up and repeated by the wild ones in the jungle around. And the natives often peg out a cock and surround him with snares to catch the wild birds which come to attack him.

But now Bechan suddenly stops Khartoum and whispers excitedly, "Sambhur nur!" "A stag." For a moment I can see nothing in the tangled bit of jungle he points to. Then suddenly the deepened blackness of a patch of shadow reveals itself as the dark hide of a sambhur stag. We have almost passed him. He is to my right rear; and I cannot swing round far enough to fire from the right shoulder. But I bring up the rifle rapidly to my left and press the trigger. As the recoil of the heavy .470 high-velocity weapon almost knocks me back flat on the pad I hear a crash in the brushwood. "Shabash! Luga! (Well done! Hit!") cries Bechan and slips from the neck of the elephant to the ground. Drawing his knife he dashes into the jungle. For, being a Mussulman, he is anxious to reach the stricken stag and hallal it; that is, let blood by cutting its throat while there is life in it. For the Mohammedan religion enjoins that an animal is only lawful food if the blood has run before its death. This is borrowed from the Mosaic Law and is really a hygienic precaution against long-dead carrion being eaten.

From the elephant's back I cannot see the quarry now, but I slip down to the ground and leave Khartoum standing stolidly, contentedly plucking and chewing leaves from the trees around. Following Bechan's track I find him holding the horn of a still feebly struggling sambhur and drawing his knife across its throat. The animal is a fine old stag about fourteen hands high. The bullet has broken its shoulder and pierced its heart. But such a wound does not necessarily imply instantaneous death. I have seen a tiger, shot through the heart, dash across a nullah and climb half-way up the steep bank until laid low by a second bullet. And sambhur and other deer stricken in the same manner will run a hundred yards before dropping. But this stag will never move again of its own volition. As the blood gushes from the gaping wound in the throat the limbs twitch violently and are still. Then Bechan raises its head for me to photograph. This done I look at my watch. It is almost noon and I have been on the elephant's back since six o'clock, so I am glad of a rest; and, sitting on the ground with my back against a tree, I pull out sandwiches and my water-bottle and have my lunch. But, having on a previous occasion been disturbed by a rogue wild elephant, I lay my loaded rifle beside me.

Bechan is busily employed. He cuts off the head, grallochs the stag and begins to flay it. After my lunch I get up to help him; for a sportsman in India soon learns to turn his hand to this gruesome task. It is a long job; and the sambhur is a heavy weight when we come to turn him over. The skin, particularly on the belly, is covered with ticks, some big, bloated and immovably fixed, others small and agile. We have to watch carefully lest any of them lodge on us, which they are apt to do; for, with its jaws once clenched in the skin, this insect can only be got rid of by cutting the body off and then pulling the head away, which generally takes a bit of one's skin with it. And the irritation of a bite lasts for months.

At last the animal is completely flayed and the skin rolled up into a bundle; for it makes excellent leather, and is much used in India for soft shooting-boots and gaiters. Then Bechan displays his aptitude for the butcher's trade. With his heavy curved kukri he divides the carcass, hacking through the thick bones with powerful blows. Having cut it into portable pieces (for a whole sambhur weighs six or seven hundred pounds) he leaves me wondering as to where the rope to tie them up will come from. He looks around him and then goes to a straight-stemmed small tree with grey and black mottled bark. He cuts off a long flap of this bark, disclosing an inner skin. In this he makes incisions with his knife, pulls a long strip of it off and cuts it into narrower strips. He hands one of these to me and tells me to test its strength. Pull as I will I cannot break it. This is the udal tree which thus provides a natural cordage of wonderful strength. It is very common in the forest. Making a hole between the bones of a haunch Bechan passes a length of this fibre through and knots it. Then it takes all our combined strength to lift the haunch and bear it to where Khartoum is still patiently waiting. With difficulty we raise and fasten it to the ropes around the pad. And when at last we have secured all this meat, destined for hungry officers and sepoys in the fort and the mahouts and their families in Santrabari we look like butchers' apprentices. My khaki shooting-garments are stained, my hands are covered with blood and grime. I gaze around me hopelessly for water, though I know we are miles from a stream. But the resources of this wonderful jungle are not exhausted. Bechan points to one of the myriad lianas criss-crossing between the trees.

"Pani bel. The water creeper," he says. I have heard of this extraordinary plant and look carefully at it. It is about two inches in diameter, four-sided rather than round, with rough, corrugated, withered bark, in appearance similar to the corkwood bark used for rustic summer-houses in England. Bechan walks to a hanging festoon of it and cuts it through with a blow of his kukri. Nothing happens. I am disappointed; for I had expected to find it tubular and see a stream of water gush out. But the interior is of a white pulpy and moist material. Then Bechan strikes another blow and holds up a length of the creeper cut off. Suddenly from one end of this water begins to trickle and soon flows freely. I wash my hands, using clay as soap. Bechan then tells me to taste the water. Holding the cut creeper above my head I let the water drain into my mouth and find it cold and delicious as spring water. This useful pani bel, like the udal, is found everywhere in these forests; and, as I am anxious to learn all I can of jungle lore to instruct my sepoys, I carefully note the appearance of both.

We have consumed two hours in the task of flaying and cutting up the sambhur. We sit down to rest and smoke before moving on again. I light a cigarette and Bechan pulls out the clay head of a hookah and fills it with coarse native tobacco.

Then at length, with Khartoum hung round with meat and looking like a perambulating butcher's shop, we move on again. After we had been going for ten minutes we come to a spot where a number of trees, some nearly two feet in diameter, have been uprooted, and their upper branches stripped off. This is the work of wild elephants, which push down the trees with their heads to reach the leaves in the tops. We find their trail in the long grass and bushes—not wide, for elephants move in single file, so that it is difficult to tell whether one or twenty have passed. However here and there tracks diverge from the main trail and rejoin it further on, showing where one of the animals has wandered off to one side in search of some succulent morsel; and in the sandy bed of a dry stream we find their footprints, huge, almost circular impression in the dust. Each elephant seems to step exactly in the marks of the leader. Even tame ones advancing over open country will walk in single file if left to themselves. We reach a spot where the herd had evidently passed the night. All around the grass is pressed down and shows where the huge beasts lay down to sleep. Wild elephants usually halt from about 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., then move and feed until 10 or 11 a.m., when they stop and shelter from the heat of the day in thick jungle. About three or four o'clock in the afternoon they get on the move again; and if they come upon water then they bathe. They travel about twenty or thirty miles in the day, though if alarmed will keep on for double that distance.

While we are following this trail a loud crash ahead of us awakens the silent forest. I think at once that it is caused by the herd in whose tracks we are. But Bechan, who is a man of few words, mutters "bunder". And I look up and see a troop of monkeys leaping through the upper branches and hurling themselves in alarm at the sight of us from tree to tree. But their insatiable curiosity brings them back to peep at us. Once this curiosity in one developed into impertinence; and the impudent little beast deliberately pelted me. It happened that day that when on foot I had been attacked by a rogue elephant which I had only brought down with a bullet in the head fifteen paces from me. Ruffled by the encounter I was going back to camp, seated on Khartoum's back. Passing under a big tree a jungle fruit fell on me. Then, raising my head, I saw a monkey in the tree grimacing and grinning derisively at me. Coming after the elephant's attack his insolence seemed to add insult to injury, and I felt tempted to reward it with a bullet. But it would have been unnecessary cruelty; and I passed on leaving him still mowing and making faces at me.

We leave the elephants' trail and emerge on a "fire line"; for in these Government forests parallel belts, about twenty yards broad, are cleared annually in an attempt to confine the ravages of the jungle fires in the hot weather. They run east and west and are a mile apart, so that they serve not only as roads, but also as guides to one's whereabouts in the forest. As we come suddenly out on the fire line we see two or three fox-like animals playing in it. They are the dreaded wild dogs which do infinite damage to game. Even the tiger regards them with dislike and fear; for, small as they are, they will worry him in a pack, chasing him night and day and giving him no rest. They keep him always on the move, remaining out of his reach until he is exhausted from fatigue and want of sleep. They are pretty little animals, generally reddish, with sharp ears and bushy tails. As soon as these stray dogs in the fire line see us they bolt off into the jungle before I can get a shot at them; for on account of the harm they do to the game every sportsman tries to kill them. I once came upon a sambhur and her fawn being attacked by a number of these jungle pests. The hind was circling round, trying to keep between her offspring and the enemy, and striking at the assailants with her sharp hoof. Whilst some of the dogs engaged her in front others tried to dash in at the fawn, retreating at once when the angry mother swung round at them. They had already hamstrung the poor little beast and torn out one of its eyes; so, when they fled as soon as they caught sight of my elephant and the hind ran off, I put the wretched fawn out of its misery with a merciful shot.

Across the fire line we entered the jungle again. Along a branch over our heads a small animal runs swiftly and leaps into a neighbouring tree. It is a giant squirrel, a pretty animal with long and bushy tail and thick black fur, except on the breast, where it is white. It peeps at us from behind the tree-trunk and then is lost to sight in the foliage.

Khartoum pursues her leisurely way through the forest; for, in thick jungle where we must swerve aside to avoid trees and hack a path through creepers and undergrowth, we hardly go a mile an hour. But on a road I have timed her to walk at the rate of four miles an hour. Suddenly my eye is caught by a flash of bright colour; and I see a khakur buck and doe bounding through the trees ahead. Laying my hand on Bechan's shoulder I make him stop the elephant. Then as the graceful little deer cross our front in an open glade I fire and drop the male in its tracks. The doe bounds off in affright. As the mahout picks up the pretty animal, too dead for him to hallal it, binds its legs together and hands it up to me to fasten on the pad, only the thought of its succulent flesh reconciles me to the slaying of it. The khakur, or barking deer, as it is called from its cry, which is similar to a dog's bark, is of a bright chestnut colour and has a curious marking on the face like a pair of very black eyebrows raised in surprise and continued down the nose. The male has peculiar little horns with skin-covered pedicles about three inches long, from which project the brow antlers and the upper tines, which curve inward towards each other. These horns are small, six inches being considered a very good length. The buck has, in addition, a pair of sharp, thin, curved tusks in the upper jaw, which it uses as weapons of offence. Satisfied with our bag we turn Khartoum's head towards home, and reach Santrabari before dusk.

Such is a typical day in the jungle. Sometimes, though rarely, I was unsuccessful in procuring something for the pot. But on one day I shot three sambhur and a khakur. My Rajput sepoys would not eat the flesh of the former; for, like most Hindus, they imagined that its cloven hoof made it kin to the sacred cow. But the Mussulmans of the detachment, and the mahouts and their families, and our coolies were grateful for the meat.

Tough as a sambhur's flesh is, we officers were glad of it ourselves when nothing better offered. But our Hindus rejoiced exceedingly whenever one of us brought home a wild boar; and the Mohammedans were correspondingly disgusted, as pork is anathema to them. The slaying of a boar with a gun in open country where pigsticking is possible is as great a crime in India as shooting a fox in a hunting county in England; but in the forest it is permissible. There were a few cheetul or spotted deer very like the English fallow deer in our jungles; but I only saw one herd and secured one stag all the time I was at Buxa. They usually frequent more open forests; and the spots on their hide assimilating to the dappled light and shade of the sun through the leaves is a good example of Nature's protective colouring. Thus the black hide of the sambhur stag blends easily with the dark shadows of the denser forest and makes them very hard to see.

One does not often meet the dangerous beasts of the jungle by day. Tigers and panthers, though frequent enough, generally move only by night. Yet I often saw on the tree-trunks long scratches where these animals had cleaned and sharpened their claws, just as the domestic cat does on the legs of chairs and tables. They keep out of the way of elephants; and so I sometimes must have passed some great feline, whose fresh tracks I had just observed, sheltering in the undergrowth and watching us as we went by. I have seen high up on the stems and branches other scratches which showed where a bear had climbed in search of fruit. These animals, the dreaded large Himalayan variety, usually dwell in the hills and descend into the forest by night, so that they are rarely met with by daylight. The natives regard them with terror; for, if stumbled upon accidentally by some woodcutter, they will probably attack him and smash his skull with a crushing blow of a paw. In our stretch of jungle I only came across one rhinoceros and a herd of six bison, which, being protected by the rules of the forest department, we could not shoot. Once my elephant put up a stray bison calf which looked at us with mild curiosity until my orderly climbed down and tried to catch it. It trotted off out of his reach and stopped to look back at him. We drove it for a mile before us, hoping to shepherd it into camp and capture it: but we lost it in thick jungle. Wild elephants I occasionally came across, and had a couple of unpleasant adventures with them.

The fascination of a day's sport in the heart of the great forest is beyond words. Even if nothing falls to one's rifle the pleasure of roaming through the woodland is intense. Of the world nothing seems to exist farther than the eye can see down the short vistas of soft green light between the giant trees. Lulled by the swaying motion of the elephant—not unpleasant when used to it—one's senses are nevertheless keenly on the alert; for every stride may disclose some strange denizen of the jungle either to be sought after or guarded against. And the beauty of it all. The fern-carpeted glades, the drooping trails of bright-coloured orchids, the tangled shadows of the dense undergrowth, the glimpses of never-ending woodland between the great boles. And always the hush, the intense silence of this enchanted forest.

The generous jungle provides everything that savage man needs. The profusely growing bamboo will make his house or bridge the streams for him. Its delicate young shoots can be eaten. Its bark gives excellent lashing. Slit longitudinally it will serve as an aqueduct and convey the water from the mountain torrents to his door. Cut into lengths it makes cups and bottles for him. Should he need a cooking-pot, a length of bamboo cut off below a knot can be filled with water and placed on the fire; and the water will be boiled and food cooked long before the green wood is much charred. For food the forest offers deer, pigs, and fowl. There are several varieties of edible tubers. The unopened flowers of the simal tree are eaten as vegetables; while its seed makes a good nourishing food for cattle, and the cotton of its burst-open pods is used for stuffing pillows. The pua, a shrub with hairy shoots and dark grey bark gives the fibre which can be woven into cloth or made into fishing-nets, twine and net-bags. There is a creeper, the bark of which, bruised and thrown into a stream, stupefies the fish and brings them floating to the surface, where they can be easily caught. The pani bel gives man water to drink. And, if he is ill, another creeper makes an excellent febrifuge, while the gum of the udal tree is used as a purgative, and fomentations of the leaves of a shrub called madar are excellent for sprains and bruises. Food, drink, clothing, houses, household utensils, medicine; what more does savage and simple man require?

The jungle was called upon to provide me with an abode; for camping in tents in the forest was a very unsafe proceeding, owing to the wild elephants which might rush over the tents at night or, from sheer curiosity, pull them down and stand on them to the detriment of the occupants. So I got Bhuttia coolies to build a bamboo hut for me up in the trees. Twenty-two feet from the ground they constructed a platform supported by the tree-trunks and branches; and on this they erected a cosy three-roomed dwelling with walls of split bamboo and roof thatched with grass. It was reached by ladders. Although it shook to the tread of anyone walking about in it, it was very strong. Split bamboo partitions divided it off into the three apartments, sitting, bed and bathroom. It was quite a romantic dwelling, such as a boy steeped in the lore of Robinson Crusoe or Jules Verne would have loved. I named it Forest Lodge and regarded it with pride. I thought it safe from the destructive tendencies of wild elephants; for it was supported entirely by the neighbouring trees, with the exception of one long bamboo pole helping to hold up the roof. But once when it was left empty some mischievous elephant discovered it. How it entered into his thick skull to do it I do not know; but he dragged on the bamboo pole until he brought the whole in ruins about his ears. However, I had it built up again, this time with an open lower story surrounded by a bamboo wall to be used as a dining-room. On its apparently frail flooring of split bamboo I once entertained eight planters who had ridden over to see Forest Lodge the Second and who, with my junior officer, myself, and three servants, made a total of thirteen persons standing on the floor at the same time. When shooting or when in camp in the forest with my detachment, for I often brought my sepoys down to teach them jungle lore and practise them in bush warfare, I always occupied it. It was never again dismantled by elephants; though a similar but smaller building close by, occupied by my servants, was several times destroyed by them.

The fact was that its position invited attack. It stood near a path, much frequented by elephants, leading to a salt lick in the hills a few hundred yards away. This was in a curious amphitheatre in the foothills where landslips had left exposed precipitous slopes of a curious white earth impregnated with some chemical salts, probably soda or natron, of which wild animals are extremely fond. Bison, elephants, and deer of all sorts used to come here at night to eat this earth; and tigers prowled around it in search of prey. Native shikarees (hunters) erected machÂns or platforms over it to pot the deer at their ease. This amphitheatre was almost a complete circle, save for one narrow chasm which must have been cut by the force of water. It was a winding gully, in places scarcely broad enough to allow the passage of an elephant with a pad on its back. I wondered what happened when two tuskers met in the narrow path. Its perpendicular sides were formed of the same white clay; but at their bases were seams of coal, black and shining where freshly exposed. When I saw them I thought that I had made a valuable discovery of mineral wealth. But when I broke off lumps of the coal and placed them on my camp fire I found that they would not burn; and I learned that there is coal in these hills which is a thousand years too young and, so, valueless. Thus faded my dream of the boundless wealth the jungle was to give me.

Forest Lodge was a constant source of interest and wonderment to all the monkeys in the neighbourhood. They used to gather in the tree-tops around and hold conferences to discuss it. Perched on the branches mothers with small babies clinging to them, sedate old men and frivolous youngsters scratched themselves meditatively and chattered and argued as to what manner of strange ape I was who had thus invaded their realm. When restless young monkeys wearied of the endless discussion and started to frivol, the elder ones seemed to rebuke their levity, and when this failed to have the desired effect would spring with bared teeth on the irreverent youth to chastise them; and the meeting then broke up in disorder.

When my detachment was encamped around Forest Lodge the scene at night, as I looked down from my windows, was truly Rembrandtesque. Their fires glowed in the trees, lighting up the dark faces of the sepoys and revealing with weird effect the huge forms of our transport elephants restlessly swaying at their pickets, ears flapping and trunks swinging as the big beasts incessantly shifted their weight from foot to foot. Around the bivouac was built a zareba of cut thorny bushes; and the guards mounted with ball cartridge in their pouches, not merely because it is the custom of the Service, but to repel any prowling dangerous beasts that might be tempted to visit the camp by night; for within fifty yards of a sentry I had a shot at a bear; and a tiger killed a sambhur not a hundred yards from the zareba. And once I sat at the window of my tree-dwelling listening to a tiger prowling around for a long time, uttering short snorting roars but never approaching near enough to give me a shot at him.

The voices of the men in the camp sounded loud through the silent forest and must have astonished the wild animals making their way to the salt lick close by, for at night all the jungle is awake. The beasts of prey wander from sunset to sunrise in search of a meal; and the deer must be on the alert against them. Only in the hot hours of the day dare they repose in security and lie down to sleep in the shade of the undergrowth. Even then they start at every sound, and the snapping of a twig brings them to their feet; for to the harmless animals life in the jungle is one constant menace. The birds and the monkeys in the trees alone can devote the dark hours to slumber; there is no rest at night for anything that dwells on the ground.

Now gradually the sepoys' voices die away and the flickering fires burn low. The forest is hushed in silence, broken only by the eerie cry of the great owl or the distant crash of a tree knocked down by a wild elephant.