A Jungle Recollection [pp. 338-345]

A Jungle Recollection.
loacled battery was next handed in, and heave. Now comes what we want-that
each gun placed reattdy for action; the deep low! it echoes again among the hills;
co'i fowl and bottle of Bass were in the another, and another. Poor wret h! yoel
mean while dis osed of, and the soda- are hastening your doom; far or near the
water bottles of cold coffee were stowed tiger hears you-under rock or thicket,
away in cunninig corners. where he has lain since morning, sheltered
The sun is Yr'sting on the hill-tops, and from the scorching sun, his ears flutter as
will soon disappear behind them; the as if they were ticklled( every time heh bears
pea-fowl and jungle-cock are noisily chal- that music; his huge green eyes, heretolenging amongst themselves, and the latest fore half-closed, are now wide open, and,
party- of wvoodcutters have just passed by, alas! poor cow, gaze truly enough in thy
showing by their brisk pace and loud talk- direction; but he has not stirred yet, and
ing, that they consider it high time for nobody can say in which direction giart
prudent men to quit the jungle. death will yet stalk forth.
To the deeply rooted stump of a young Whichever of my readers who has never
tree on the opposite bank, one of the white had to wait in solitude, in a strange room
cows has been made fast by a double cord of a strange house, has not indulged in
passed twice round her hlorlns. Nothing that idle speculative curiosity peculiar lo
xemains to be done; the little door is such a situation, gazing on the pictures,
fastened behind,me, the prickly acacia and counting, perhaps, tables and( chairs
boughs are piled up against it on the out- with an absurd earnestness of purposeside, and my people are anxious to be off. will not understand how I spent the f:'st
The old Shikaree makes his appearance in half-hour of my solitude; how I idJy
the nullah, and wishing me succe,ss through counted the stakes that formed the framethe window, asks if " all is right?" work of the hut, or watched with interest
"Everything; get home as fast as you the artful tactics of another Shikaree, in
cal; if you should hear three shots in suc- the shape of a slippery-looking green lizard,
cession before dark, come back for me- who was cautiously "stalking" the insects
ctherwise, bring the pony at six to-morrow among the rafters.
morning-and a cup of hot coffee, tell the The cow, tired with struggling and
cook." plunging, appears to have become toler They are gone; I still hear them every ably resigned to her situation, and has lain
now and then, as they shout to one another,' down, her ears, however, in continual
and as the pony scrambled through some motion, and the jaws sometimes sudder-ly
loose stones in the bed of a ravine through arrested, while in the act of chewing the
which the road lies. cud, to listen, as some slight noise in the
The poor cow. too, listens with disma,y thicket attracts her attention. Gracious!
to the retreating footsteps of the party, and what is that downl on the nullah to the left?
has already made some furious plunges t6 A peacock otnly. How my heart beat at
free herself and rejoin the rest of the kine, first! what a splendid train thefellow has!
who have been driven off, nothing loth, to- Here he comes, evidently for the water:
wards home. Watch her; how intently and now his seraglio-one, two, four, five,
she stares along the path by which the buff-breasted, modest-looking little quakerpeople have deserted her! Were it not esses. What a contrast to his spilendid
for the occasional stamp of the fore leg, or blue and gold! All to the water-dive in
the impatient side-toss of the head, to your bills and toss back your heads, with
keep off the swarming flies, she might be blinking eyes, as you quaff the delicious
carved out of marble. And now a fearful fluid; little do you dream that there is a
and anxious gaze up the bed of the nul- gun within five paces, although you are
lab, and into the thick fringe of Mimosa, quite safe. But stop! here are antics. The
one ear pricked and the other back alter- old boy is happy, and up goes his tail, to
nately, show that instinct had already the admiration of his hens, and the ex-whispered the warning of impending dan-{treme wondernment of the cow, who, wilh
ger. Another plunge to get loose, and a open eyes, is staring with all her might at
searching gaze up the path; see her sides the glories of the expanded fan; and nog:
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[JUNI