route from Calcutta to the hills lay a little to the west of
north; and at many places on their journey they not only heard of the
sloth bear, but were witnesses of the ravages which this destructive
creature had committed on the crops of the farmers.

There were sugar plantations, on which they saw tall wooden towers
raised in the middle of the field, and carried to a considerable height
above the surrounding vegetation. On inquiring the purpose of these
singular structures, they were informed that they were intended as
watch-towers; and that, during the season, when the crops were
approaching to ripeness, _videttes_ were stationed upon these towers,
both by night and by day, to keep a lookout for the bears, and frighten
them off whenever these plunderers made their appearance within the
boundaries of the fields!

Notwithstanding the many evidences of the sloth bear's presence met with
throughout the province of Bengal, our hunters failed in falling in with
this grotesque gentleman, till they were close up to the foot of the
Himalaya mountains, in that peculiar district known as the _Terai_.
This is a belt of jungle and forest land--of an average width of about
twenty miles, and stretching along the southern base of the Himalaya
range throughout its whole length, from Afghanistan to China. In all
places the Terai is of so unhealthy a character, that it can scarcely be
said to be inhabited--its only human denizens being a few sparse tribes
of native people (Mechs); who, acclimated to its miasmatic atmosphere,
have nothing to fear from it. Woe to the European who makes any
lengthened sojourn in the Terai! He who does will there find his grave.

For all its unhealthiness, it is the favourite haunt of many of the
largest quadrupeds: the elephant, the huge Indian rhinoceros, the lion
and tiger, the jungly ghau or wild ox, the sambur stag, panthers,
leopards, and cheetahs. The sloth bear roams through its thickets and
glades--where his favourite food, the white ants, abounds; and it was
upon reaching this district that our hunters more particularly bent
themselves to search for a specimen of this uncouth creature.

Fortunately they were not long till they found one--else the climate of
the Terai would soon have so enfeebled them, that they might never have
been able to climb the stupendous mountains beyond. Almost upon
entering within the confines of this deadly wilderness, they encountered
the sloth bear; and alth