k puggree is a great
protection to the back of the head and neck, the part of the body
which of all others requires protection from the sun. It feels rather
heavy at first, but one gets used to it, and it does not shade the
eyes and face. These are the two gravest objections to it, but for
comfort, softness, and protection to the head and neck, I do not think
it can be surpassed.

After crossing the sand, we again entered some thin scrubby acacia
jungle, with here and there a moist swampy nullah, with rank green
patair jungle growing in the cool dank shade. Here we disturbed a
colony of pigs, but the four mahouts being Mahommedans I did not fire.
As we went along, one of my men called my attention to some footprints
near a small lagoon. On inspection we found they were rhinoceros
tracks, evidently of old date. These animals are often seen in this
part of the country, but are more numerous farther north, in the great
morung forest jungle.

A very noticeable feature in these jungles was the immense quantity of
bleached ghastly skeletons of cattle. This year had been a most
disastrous one for cattle. Enormous numbers had been swept off by
disease, and in many villages bordering on the morung the herds had
been well-nigh exterminated. Little attention is paid to breeding. In
some districts, such as the Mooteeharree and Mudhobunnee division,
fine cart-bullocks are bred, carefully handled and tended, and fetch
high prices. In Kurruchpore, beyond the Ganges in Bhaugulpore
district, cattle of a small breed, hardy, active, staunch, and strong,
are bred in great numbers, and are held in great estimation for
agricultural requirements; but in these Koosee jungles the bulls are
often ill-bred weedy brutes, and the cows being much in excess of a
fair proportion of bulls, a deal of in-breeding takes place; unmatured
young bulls roam about with the herd, and the result is a crowd of
cattle that succumb to the first ailment, so that the land is littered
with their bones.

The bullock being indispensable to the Indian cultivator, bull calves
are prized, taken care of, well nurtured, and well fed. The cow calves
are pretty much left to take care of themselves; they are thin,
miserable, half-starved brutes, and the short-sighted ryot seems
altogether to forget that it is on these miserable withered specimens
that he must depend for his supply of plough and cart-bullocks. The
matter is most shamefully neglected. Government occasionally