m down to the village, where we found them
already beginning to hack and hew the flesh, completely spoiling the
skin, and properly completing the butchery. We were terribly vexed
that we were too late, but endeavoured to stop the stupid destruction
that was going on. The body measured eleven feet three inches from the
snout to the tail, and stood six feet nine. The horn was six and a
half inches long, and the girth a little over ten feet. We put the
best face on the matter, congratulated the Baboo with very bad grace,
and asked him to get the skin cut up properly.

Cut in strips from the under part of the ribs and along the belly, the
skin makes magnificent riding-whips. The bosses on the shoulder and
sides are made into shields by the natives, elaborately ornamented and
much prized. The horn, however, is the most coveted acquisition. It is
believed to have peculiar virtues, and is popularly supposed by its
mere presence in a house to mitigate the pains of maternity. A
rhinoceros horn is often handed down from generation to generation as
a heirloom, and when a birth is about to take place the anxious
husband often gets a loan of the precious treasure, after which he has
no fears for the safe issue of the labour.

The flesh of the rhinoceros is eaten by all classes. It is one of the
five animals that a Brahmin is allowed to eat by the _Shastras_. They
were formerly much more common in these jungles, but of late years
very few have been killed. When they take up their abode in a piece of
jungle they are not easily dislodged. They are fierce, savage brutes,
and do not scruple to attack an elephant when they are hard pressed by
the hunter. When they wish to leave a locality where they have been
disturbed, they will make for some distant point, and march on with
dogged and inflexible purpose. Some have been known to travel eighty
miles in the twenty-four hours, through thick jungle, over rivers, and
through swamp and quicksand. Their sense of hearing is very acute, and
they are very easily roused to fury. One peculiarity often noticed by
sportsmen is, that they always go to the same spot when they want to
obey the calls of nature. Mounds of their dung are sometimes seen in
the jungle, and the tracks shew that the rhinoceros pays a daily visit
to this one particular spot.

In Nepaul, and along the _terai_ or wooded slopes of the frontier,
they are more numerous; but 'Jung Bahadur,' the late ruler of Nepaul,
would allow no