s extinct; if it be already dead, he will leave it alone for the
Hindoos, who have no such scruples.

A number of _moosahurs, banturs, gwallas_, and other idlers, from the
jungle villages, generally follow in the wake of the line. If you
shoot many pigs, they carry off the dead bodies, and hold high
carnival in their homes in the evening. To see them rush on a slain
buffalo, and hack it to pieces, is a curious sight; they fight for
pieces of flesh like so many vultures. Sportsmen generally content
themselves with the head of a buffalo, but not a scrap of the carcase
is ever wasted. The natives are attracted to the spot, like ants to a
heap of grain, or wasps to an old sugar barrel; they seem to spring
out of the earth, so rapidly do they make their appearance. If you
were to kill a dozen buffaloes, I believe all the flesh would be taken
away to the neighbouring villages within an hour.

This appearance of men in the jungles is wonderful. You may think
yourself in the centre of a vast wilderness, not a sign of human
habitation for miles around; on all sides stretches a vast ocean of
grass, the resort of ferocious wild animals, seemingly untrodden by a
human foot. You shoot a deer, a pig, or other animal whose flesh is
fit for food; the man behind you gives a cry, and in ten minutes you
will have a group of brawny young fellows around your elephant, eager
to carry away the game. The way these natives thread the dense jungle
is to me a wonder; they seem to know every devious path and hidden
recess, and they traverse the most gloomy and dangerous solitudes
without betraying the slightest apprehension.

In fastening dead game to the pad of the carrying elephant great care
is necessary. Some elephants are very timid, and indeed all elephants
are mistrustful and suspicious of anything behind them. They are
pretty courageous in facing anything before them, but they do not like
a rustling or indeed any motion in their rear. I have seen a dog put
an elephant to flight, and if you have a lazy _hathi_, a good plan is
to walk a horse behind him. He will then shuffle along at a prodigious
pace constantly looking round from side to side, and no doubt in his
heart anathematising the horse that forces the running so
persistently.

The present method of roughly lashing on dead game anyhow requires
altering. Some ingenious sportsman could surely devise a system of
slings by which the dead weight of the game could be more equally
dist