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servants was down with it, and died just after I got back to my camp. I left Nagjirree the same afternoon, and encamped half-way between it and Akolah. The next morning we passed through Akolah. Cholera was now raging in this densely-peopled town, and the wailing of bereaved women rose wildly on the chill morning air, and death-lights glimmered in the midst of many a huddled, white-clothed group in courtyards, as we passed, silent and gloomy, through the ill-kept streets.

And good reason we had to be gloomy and silent; for, ere we had gone far from the town, one of my servants, a horsekeeper, or native groom, was taken ill, died in a few hours on the roadside, and was there buried in the afternoon. We went hurrying on, march after march, through the Berar valley, seeing the dying and dead lying along the road: at night no accustomed sound of laugh and chatter was to be heard among my followers; the evening meal, usually the great time of gossip and of enjoyment, passed in dead silence all were terror-stricken and brooding on possible events which the next day might bring forth. Nor were my own reflections a whit more cheerful. I had lost two people out of about a dozen who were with me, and we had yet, after quitting Berar, somewhere about seventy miles to cover, in a wild jungly country, far from any aid, before we could reach Kamptee. But no further misfortune overtook us, and this anxious journey terminated on the 15th of April.

The only sport I got on this return journey was at a jungle village, by name Kerula. Hearing that there were bears in the neighbourhood, I went out early and walked along the tops of some small hills,

carefully looking into each gorge and hollow as we passed along. At about 7 o'clock we saw a fine large bear walking up a ravine, and I ran and got to the head of the ravine just as he emerged. He looked much astonished, and endeavoured to decline the interview; but I fired a shot at him, and he went slowly off, badly hit. I hit him again, and he stood, up against a small tree and hugged and bit it fiercely. On the same day, after breakfast, I was sitting in my tent-door, when two neilghye galloped down a small hill, and made for the river which ran close by. I went after them at once, but could not sight them again.

I came across a great many sepulchres of the most ancient inhabitants of India. These graves are met with over the whole country, from north to south. I had seen them at Cape Comorin, and now met with them close to Nagpore, and I believe that they exist also hundreds of miles further north. Their character is the same in all places: a ring, of about twenty feet in diameter, of rough unhewn stones, arranged round four thin, roughly-shaped slabs, forming a square or an oblong sepulchre in the middle of the circle. These square stones are embedded in the earth; but, whether from the washing away of soil by the rains of centuries, or by their not having been sunk quite to their full depth originally, the ends of the slabs commonly stand out a little above the surface. The rough stones or boulders which form the circle round the grave are about two to three feet in measurement each way, being, in fact, masses of rock, weighing each many hundredweight. Many of the tombs in various places have been opened; in all of them coarselymade vessels of black pottery are found in fragments,

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and among these fragments are wood ashes and bits of calcined bones; in some graves iron knives and sword-blades, eaten through and through with rust, have been (though rarely) found; usually there is nothing to repay the labour of the search. The ancient Scythian (?) race, whose tombs are thus spread all over India on every dry, stony piece of ground, all of the same rude plan and design, were clearly not a wealthy people, and have left nothing worth the antiquary's attention in their old-world graves.

In May I again went out for large game, but was disappointed, for the season turned out to be a most remarkable one, such as to upset my hopes of sport. One storm followed another during the whole of what should have been the "hot season." The temperature was pleasant enough, but water filled every nullah bed, and every depression and hollow rock was filled. with fresh rain-water. The great cats, and other animals also, felt no need to keep near perennial springs and jungle-fringed rivers, but roamed at pleasure over the whole country, as they do in the rainy and cool seasons of the year, and my hopes of sport were dashed to the ground. On arriving at Chankee Copra, I was told that a tiger had been in the bheer in the beginning of the month, but had not been seen since this rainy and stormy weather had set in. We, however, beat the bheer, and at first put nothing out but a number of hog-a bad sign, as I have before observed. When the beat was nearly over, a large panther came out and made off to a small watercourse and thin low jungle which skirts the cover. We chased it down this watercourse for more than half a mile, and got two snap-shots, but

did not hit it. But the panther was done up with the heat of the sun, and, leaving the pebbly bed of the nullah, took to the open plain, trotting slowly and awkwardly, with his legs wide apart and his tongue out, stopping under every shady bush, until my inevitable approach on the "earth-shaking" elephant turned him out again. At last he stopped in a large bush, apparently dead-beat, and we saw him in it, sitting up like a great dog, and I shot him through the body. He came on with a savage roar and charged the elephant; but his heart failed him, as well it might, and he turned, and I shot him again through one fore-arm. He now rolled about, biting his side, and I finished him with a shot in the back. He was a very large male, a regular bullock-killer, very bright yellow with intensely black rose spots, and he measured ten spans, i.e. about seven feet six inches. He had very much spoiled his skin, having, poor beast, bitten a hole in it at the body wound as large as a man's hand.

All the mango trees here were stripped of their leaves in a violent hail-storm of two days before. The hail had also killed many fish in the river; they were lying on the surface of the still pools and on the banks, and the natives said that the hail had killed them. This river is full of otters, but they are very cunning, and I did not get a shot at them; they make a curious twittering noise as they swim about, with only their bullet heads above water, diving at the smallest alarm. In this expedition I shot nothing more except a ravine deer and two neilghye. At the end of this year my tour on the Staff expired, but as my successor was detained upon special duty at Calcutta, I remained in office about three months longer.