the midst of a gang of coolies. Terrified and confused by the shouting
of the men, it ran straight at Shere Shah, the jemadar, who promptly
dropped a basket over it and held it fast. I happened to arrive just in
time to save the graceful little animal's life, and took it home to my
camp, where it very soon became a great pet. Indeed, it grew so tame
that it would jump upon my table at meal times and eat from my hand.

When the road for the trolley line was cleared, the next piece of work
was the building of the two temporary bridges over the river. These we
made in the roughest fashion out of palm trees and logs felled at the
crossing places, and had a flood come down they would, of course, have
both been swept away; fortunately, however, this did not occur until
the permanent work was completed. The whole of this feeding line was
finished in a very short time, and trollies were soon plying backwards
and forwards with loads of stone and sand, as we also discovered the
latter in abundance and of good quality in the bed of the ravine. An
amusing incident occurred one day when I was taking a photograph of an
enormous block of stone which was being hauled across one of these
temporary bridges. As the trolley with its heavy load required very
careful manipulation, my head mason, Heera Singh, stood on the top of
the stone to direct operations, while the overseer, Purshotam Hurjee,
superintended the gangs of men who hauled the ropes at either end in
order to steady it up and down the inclines. But we did not know that
the stream had succeeded in washing away the foundations of one of the
log supports; and as the weight of the trolley with the stone came on
the undermined pier, the rails tilted up and over went the whole thing
into the river, just as I snapped the picture. Heera Singh made a wild
spring into the water to get clear of the falling stone, while
Purshotam and the rest fled as if for their lives to the bank. It was
altogether a most comical sight, and an extraordinary chance that at
the very moment of the accident I should be taking a photograph of the
operation. Fortunately, no one was injured in the slightest, and the
stone was recovered undamaged with but little trouble.

Not long after this occurrence my own labours were one day nearly
brought to a sudden and unpleasant end. I was travelling along in an
empty trolley which, pushed by two sturdy Pathans, was returning to the
quarry for sand. Presently we came to