an imposing spectacle. Of British troops, two batteries of horse artillery, a dragoon regiment, three light field batteries, three or four companies of sappers, and three infantry regiments. Of native troops, two cavalry and three infantry regiments. The march from Poonah to Kamptee was a most satisfactory one. The weather was perfect; there was no sickness, and no crime. I cannot call to mind more than two cases of drunkenness having come to notice during the whole march, from 2nd November to 10th December, on which day we entered Kamptee. Some few things occurred on the march which are, I think, worth relating.

The first was a strange sort of panic which seized the regiment one dark morning, just as it was marching out of camp by the light of torches carried in front of the column. Quite suddenly a buzz of voices arose, and then swelled into a great clamour, with shouts of "Look out!" "Stand fast!" &c., and then a cry, in parts of the regiment, "Fix bayonets ! " though by whom raised was not ascertained; but the column doubled up in a shouting mass, and order was not restored for some little time. No one could give any reason for the commotion. It was conjectured that it had been caused by the "stampede" of some baggage animals; but this was not proved.

Another and more serious incident was the tragic death of a cart-driver. I should have mentioned that there was with the regiment a rather large party of dismounted men of the 8th Hussars and 17th Lancers, proceeding to join their regiments in Central India. The lances, perhaps thirty in number, were packed in a cart, in a sheaf, with the lance-heads projecting a foot or more over the cart-tail. One morning, the

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baggage carts, crawling in a long train one after the other, as is the custom with "country carts," came to a rather steep declivity ending in a sandy nullah. Indian drivers and Indian bullocks love to rush down such places at speed with their carts; so, coming to the declivity, each driver, either sitting in front of his cart, or standing between the bullocks' heads with his arms over their necks, drove on at a round trot until they reached the nullah, in the sand of which they immediately reduced their speed to the slowest of walks, and so crawled up the opposite bank. Many of the carts had done this, and had, naturally, closed up at the nullah, until the noses of the bullocks were well jammed into the tails of the carts next before them. The cart with the lances performed this manœuvre; and the driver of that which next followed, seeing that he was being rushed up to the lance-heads, got between his bullocks, and endeavoured to bring them to a standstill before they should reach the threatening blades, but to no purpose: the obstinate brutes, boring their way down-hill, would not, possibly could not, pull up; and the unfortunate driver was impelled forcibly against the sheaf of lances, most of which entered his stomach and chest and passed out at his back. He was pulled off, of course stark dead, and was put down on the road-side, to be disposed of by the native police, &c., who accompanied the regiment. He did not seem to belong to anybody in particular, and we heard no more about him.

Soon after this, an officer got leave to shoot his way from one camp to the next, instead of marching with the regiment; but as the day wore on, and he did not come into camp, we got rather anxious about

him, for he was quite alone, having taken no native with him, and not knowing a word of any native language he was on pony-back, and had a halter with him coiled round the pony's neck with which to tether it when he dismounted for the purpose of shooting.

Night fell, and he did not appear: natives were sent on the back track, and we supposed they would easily find him. The next day the regiment did not march reports came in that he had been seen wandering in the partly-cultivated plain, about ten miles from camp, near some villages. As night again drew on, the commanding officer got seriously alarmed, and accepted my offer to go out and look for him. Accordingly, I started at about 8 P.M., on horseback, and with a dhooly (a light palanquin used for carriage of the sick) and bearers; also with his soldier-servant mounted on a pony.

seen.

We went on the back road a few miles, and then turned off to a village, where we heard he had been On questioning the villagers, we were told that he had been in some fields belonging to another village, so we went thither. To cut a long story short, we traced him all night from village to village, often almost in a circle, and, at day-light, reached a mud fort, the inhabitants of which said that he had been there, and had made signs to them, just before nightfall, but that they had shut the gates against him, "being afraid "! Some respectable-looking Mahomedans told me this, and I gave them a good piece of my mind, reminding them that the Korān enjoined hospitality, and that they had shown themselves to be "bey-imān" (men without religion), at which they were much hurt and scandalised! However, they had watched him as he tethered his pony

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for the night, not far from the village, and we hastened to the spot, and found him in a rather exhausted condition, as may be imagined. He had completely lost himself, and had had nothing to eat for two days except some grains of half-ripe millet, which he had rubbed out between his hands. He told me that the churlish villagers had not only shut their gates in his face, but had manned their walls with matchlocks and spears against him. So much for dislike and dread combined! I had, of course, ample materials in the dhooly for a good breakfast, and he was carried in that conveyance about twenty miles to the new camp; for the regiment had in the meantime made a twelvemile march. We reached the camp at mid-day, having in our search covered nearly forty miles since the previous evening.

After this march, nothing worth mentioning occurred until April 1859, when I obtained ten days' leave, and made my first excursion into the jungles of the Nagpore country. Having been granted permission to take a Government elephant with me, I drove and rode, about thirty-two miles, to Takulghaut, a village on the high road from Nagpore to Madras. There was a famous tiger cover on the banks of the Bore river, between Takulghaut and Boree, but which, I regret to say, has been since entirely cut down and destroyed. I did not beat it; I only looked at it, and saw some pea-fowl. It was the perfection of a tiger cover-a dense tangle of large trees festooned with creepers and dark evergreen undergrowth, extending nearly two miles along the high banks of the river, which, broken up into several interlacing channels, and with numerous creeks and ravines running into it, held at this dry season of the

year only a shallow thread of running water. The creeks ran down from the undulating grass-land on both sides of the main stream, and they also were fringed with narrow belts of thick jungle. For about a mile on each side of the river's course was an expanse of tall rumnah grass mixed with "bear" thorn bushes and other scrub-jungle, among which the scarlet flowers of the palass tree were the most conspicuous. This grass cover, usually in Nagpore termed a "bheer," held also innumerable painted partridge and great herds of hog. The tigers and the gorgeous plumaged pea-fowl kept to the heavy jungle along the river's bed. A day or two before I was at Takulghaut, a tiger had rushed upon some plough bullocks, and struck down four of them, one after the other, before the eyes of their horrified owners!

I had no means of beating this enormous cover, and rode ten miles next day to Seldoo, the place which my exploring shikarry had fixed upon as a likely spot. The country round the grove of mango trees in which I pitched my tent was flat, with a great deal of stony and grassy waste land among the wheat-fields. A circling range of hills, covered with tall yellow grass, much of which had been burned off in patches, formed a background to the westward at a distance of from one to two miles from my camp: an amphitheatre of these hills and their advancing spurs enclosed an extensive jungle, which had several watercourses, all but dry at this season, running through it.

The Nagpore country is famous for mowah trees (Bassia latifolia). The mowah is a large, handsome, round-topped tree, with spreading branches, and broad bright green leaves which acquire this hue at