themselves disappear. The
first thing we saw on our first approach to Almora was a horse which had
been killed by a leopard the preceding night. A woman, who had been
cutting grass before the door of a house we occupied for a few days, was
killed an hour afterwards by a tiger in the adjoining forest. One
afternoon we heard the cry of a herd, and running out we saw a goat with
its throat cut, but the leopard that had killed it had disappeared in
the jungle beneath. On another occasion my pony, picketed near my tent,
had a narrow escape from a leopard. I have often heard huntsmen relate
the encounters they have had with these terrible brutes. On one occasion
I saw four dead tigers brought in by a party that had killed them a few
miles from the place where my tent was pitched. Tigers are very
migratory. They live in the cold weather down in the Bhabhur and the
Turai, and as the hot weather advances they follow the herd up the hills
on to the verge of the snow. The bears of the hills feed on fruit and
vegetables, and usually make away when human beings are seen, but they
are very formidable to those who attack them, or come suddenly across
their path. In some places wolves abound, and children and animals
require to be guarded against them; but they never hunt in packs as in
Russia, and they are not feared by grown-up people. In the lower hills
and the Bhabhur there are herds of wild elephants, which do much injury
to the crops of the people, and cannot be safely approached. I have been
again and again in their track. There are also serpents, but they are
not so numerous or venomous as in the plains. The dangers to which the
inhabitants are exposed is shown by the annual statistics of casualties,
in which the first place is given to the ravages of wild beasts, the
second to landslips, and the third to serpents.

[Sidenote: INCONVENIENT STIPULATION.]

I may end this account of Kumaon, its scenery, products, history, and
people, by mentioning two stipulations in the treaty with the Ghoorkhas,
when the British took possession of the land, which are strikingly
illustrative at once of British policy and of Hindu feeling. One
stipulation was that certain sums should be paid annually to the priests
of certain temples. A second stipulation was that the slaughter of
bullocks and cows should be strictly prohibited. Not a vestige of power
over the country was left to the Ghoorkhas; the entire rule was
transferred to the British. But