A DAY ON THE NEILGHERRY HILLS."

BY AN OLD FOREST-RANGER.

THE unlucky"Heels" had disappeared in the distance, and the recall of the huntsman's bugle had brought together the scattered hounds as old Lorimer scrambled up the steep hill-side, mounted on his shaggy little pony, "Marble."

"Come, gentlemen," cried he, as he pulled off his green huntingcap, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, "don't let us lose time; the hounds are all assembled, and we have still plenty of work before us. Our next beat is to be the large wood, at the back of this hill, where we have twelve deer marked down. You all know your stations there, I believe. And, after that, we shall try the rocky glen, below the Todah Mund,'† in hopes of finding that large bear which gave us the slip last Saturday. You must really exert yourselves this time, lads, and not let him escape again. I hear that the old blackguard has taken a fancy to human flesh of late, and has carried off a Todah woman and a child within the last three days. So, die he must; if we hunt him for a week. As to the hogs, we have given a tolerably good account of them. This old boar and three fat sows have been sent to the shades. So let's mount and be off. Ha! Charles, my boy, give me your hand; you stood up to that old boar like a man; and the way in which you handled your spear made me forget the disgrace you brought upon my trusty rifle by that first shot of yours. Oh, you young dog, it was a devil of a miss that! a most palpable miss-worthy of my friends the thistlewhippers! You shut both your eyes when you fired that shot, eh?-did you not, you young dog, eh? Well, well—never look ashamed, boy-I have seen older hands than you make as bad a miss before now, and trust to their heels rather than a spear afterwards. Eh! Doctor-do you recollect that wounded sow that gave you such a devil of a gruelling, up the hill at Ralliah,' last week? Faith, you may thank your long legs and the ounce of lead I lodged in her shoulder for being now in a whole skin.”

"Indeed then, Sir," replied the Doctor, a lanky, raw-boned Scotchman, with a very pawky expression of countenance, " thae same lang legs o' mine are no ill things at a pinch; and in my opeenion are mair to be lippened till than the best spear amang them a'. But, at the same time, I was muckle indebted to you, Sir, for that bit lead ye put into the beast. It was just in the nick o' time, for I was sair taigled wi' thae lang leather spats-thae leggins, as ye ca' them; mair fit for an Indian savage than a Christian man. And the muckle beast was just at the grippin o' me when ye cowpet her. Gude preserve us frae a' langnebbit things!-it gars me grue to think o't! The wild grumph!' 'grumph!' 'grumph!' o' the rampawgin deevil just ahint me-and me expectin' every moment to feel her muckle white teeth play chack through my hurdies. Ay, ye may laugh, lads; but, faith, it was nae laughin' sport to me—and that ye'll ken, the first time ony o' you tries a race wi'

*Continued from p. 478, vol. xlix.

Amund" is a small cluster of huts inhabited by the Todahs-the Aborigines of the Neilgherry Hills.

ane o' thae wild swine. They're just perfect deevils incarnate! My certie! ye're waur aff wi' ane o' them than Tam O'Shanter wi' Cutty Sark at his heels-for she only pou't aff the grey meere's tail; but faith, lads, it's your ain tail that's in danger when ye come to grips wi' a wild soo!"

This speech of the Doctor's elicited a roar of laughter from his companions, in which he good-humouredly joined; and the whole party mounting their ponies cantered over the hill to take up their positions for the next beat.

The scene is now changed to one of those wild solitary valleys through which the superfluous water of the hills makes its escape, and rushes on its headlong course down the almost perpendicular side of the mountain. From hence the glowing plains of the Carnatic are seen extended like a living map 8000 feet below the spectator. The valley itself presents a scene of wild and savage grandeur, contrasting beautifully with the luxuriant palm groves and voluptuous sunshine of the low country, over which the eye wanders, for many leagues, till it is lost in the dreamy indistinctness of the distance, where earth and sky become blended in a red fiery haze. Light fleecy clouds are hurried swiftly across the heavens, and shivered, as it were, against the craggy peaks of that granite mountain, which towers high amidst the region of storms, whilst all around is hushed, silent, and 'motionless, as the sleep of infancy. The only sound which breaks the death-like stillness is the wild, unearthly cry of the great black monkey-a deep, loud "wooh!" "wooh!" which rising suddenly, and at long intervals, from the gloomy recesses of the wood, has a strange, startling effect, and suggests to one's mind the idea of a stray satyr calling to his mates.

Mansfield and Charles have just taken up their position behind the shelter of a palmira bush.

The former, accustomed to such scenes, is sitting with his ponderous rifle across his knee, his thumb resting on the cock, and his head turned a little on one side, watching, with the unwearied patience of an Indian hunter, to catch the faintest sound; whilst the more romantic Charles, allowing his weapon to lie idly by his side, gazes with rapture on the glorious view, and, if I am any judge of physiognomy, is thinking more of his pretty cousin than of the deer.

The hounds have opened on the scent. "Down! down!-crouch like a panther!" whispered Mansfield, seizing Charles by the arm, and pulling him more behind the shelter of the bush. "Do you remark that crackling amongst the dry branches just below us? It is a deer, and he will break at that opening where you see a beaten path like a sheep-track. It is their regular run; keep your eye upon the spot, and watch."

"I see him," whispered Charles, cocking his rifle, and making a motion to rise. "I see his antlers moving above that bush of wild jessamine."

"Stay, stay, my boy-not so fast," replied Mansfield, smiling at the eagerness of his young companion. "It requires a little more experience than you have had, to judge whereabouts a stag's shoulder should lie, when nothing but the points of his horns are visible. Don't fire till you can see his body. He is listening intently to the hounds, and does not observe us, so there is no hurry. Now then he moves-now!"

A sharp crack-a dull plashing sound-the noble stag plunges madly forward-and over, over, over he rolls, staining the green herbage with his life-blood, which gushes fast from a rugged hole in his side.

Mansfield's peon springs forward with the bound of a tiger, and, muttering a short prayer, like a good Mussulman as he is, buries the long glittering blade of a hunting-knife in the throat of his victim. The "stricken deer" gasps painfully for breath-his wide nostril is distended -his bloodshot eye rolls wildly for a moment-his limbs quiver in the last agony-he heaves a long shuddering sigh, and dies.

This was the first deer that Charles had ever seen fall, and his heart smote him as he witnessed its dying struggles.

Is not this rather a cruel amusement? whispered conscience. Does not your savage nature relent as you see that graceful creature weltering in his blood, and, in the last agonies, bending his dark languid eye upon your face, as if asking, What have I done to deserve this? Do you not almost wish that the fatal ball had sped less truly to its mark?

Mansfield, who had watched the working of his companion's features, as he gazed pensively on the dying stag, here interrupted him with a gentle tap on the shoulder.

"I can read your thoughts, boy; and they do credit to your heart. Even I, old sportsman as I am, can sympathize with you in a feeling which many men affect to call weakness, but which I consider merely as a proof of a good heart, and one which no man need be ashamed of. I can look unmoved on the dying struggles of the foaming boar. I even experience a sort of savage satisfaction, as the last faint growl rattles in the throat of the surly bear; and the expiring roar of the vanquished tiger is music in my ears. But I never yet slew a deer that a feeling of pity, such as you now experience, did not immediately succeed the burst of exultation which invariably accompanies a well-directed shot; and yet, the very next moment, I was exerting my utmost skill to accomplish the death of some other animal, and felt all the disappointment of a baffled tiger if my ball did not take effect. We are strange unaccountable animals in this respect. But I am satisfied it is not cruelty-it is not a thirst for blood which inspires us with a love for the chase. No! it is a far nobler feeling;-a species of ambition-a love of enterprise; the pleasure arising from which depends entirely on the difficulties to be surmounted in the attainment of our object. What satisfaction, for instance, would it give a sportsman to be turned loose in a park, full of fallow deer, where, if shedding blood were his object, he might gratify that propensity to his heart's content? None whatever. There are no difficulties to be surmounted, and he would look upon himself in the light of a butcher. But after a long day's stalking through a Highland glen-after making a round of many weary miles to get down the wind of the ever-watchful red deer-after creeping through the heather like a snake, and wearing his knees to the bone amongst the coarse gravel of a dry watercourse,-how breathless that moment of intense anxiety to the sportsman when he first ventures to raise his head above the sheltering bank, and finds the object of all his labour, a noble stag of ten times, still feeding quietly in the very spot where he first observed him! And, oh! the electric thrill of exultation, when the crack of his rifle is answered by that dull soft thud, grateful to the sportsman's ear as the voice of her he loves; and the proud

stag, bounding high into air, falls gasping on the bloody heath !-Bah! the sensations of a young lady on receiving her first proposal are nothing to this. But, hark! the merry music of the hounds comes sweeping by us on the blast, and scatters all my romantic and moralizing ideas to the four winds of heaven. Hurra!"

But 'twere long to tell of all the deer that fell in the course of this beat. Suffice it to say that many proud antlered heads bowed before the unerring rifle of Mansfield; and that the worthy Doctor expended more than his usual allowance of ammunition, with even less than his usual success.

The party had assembled at luncheon by the time Mansfield and Charles joined them; and, as they approached, their ears were saluted by the loud tones of old Lorimer's voice, swearing as usual by "the beard of the Prophet," and " the bones of his ancestors," while he vented his wrath, in no very measured terms, against the unfortunate Doctor.

"Well, you d-d long slip of anatomy, you expect to get something to line your ungodly maw, do you, after the good service you have done us to-day? Bones of my ancestors, man! it might grumble long enough before you filled it with venison of your own killing, although, to do you justice, you are as good a shot at a venison-pasty as any one I know. Why, you vender of ratsbane! what the devil were you thinking of, to let all those deer pass you? Fifteen shots have I seen you fire this blessed day-fifteen shots, by the beard of the Prophet! and not a hoof to show for them. Hang it, man, that last hind passed so close, you might have thrown salt on her tail, and yet, after four shots, away she went, bounding over the hills like a kangaroo, with half of the hounds at her heels; and when we shall get them back again the devil only knows. Speak, you misbegotten son of Esculapius! Why don't you speak, and let us hear what you have to say for yourself?"

The Doctor, who was well accustomed to the old gentleman's eccentric ways, and knew him to be one of those privileged characters who say and do whatever they like, without giving offence to any one, sat very coolly exploring the inmost recesses of a venison-pasty, whilst he listened with imperturbable gravity to this harangue. At length, bolting an enormous mouthful, and washing it down with a long pull at the brandy-panee, he thus replied, still keeping his knife ready to resume his attack on the pasty.

"Ca' cannie, Sir!-ca' cannie! For ony sake, dinna be puttin yersell throughither that gaet. It's no good for the digestion. It's an unco bad thing for a person o' your plethoric habit to be giving way to sic violent emotions sae soon after meals. Do you no ken, Sir, it's very apt to bring on a fit o' apoplexy? Gude preserve us! but he's gettin awfu' red in the face! It's amaist black! I'm thinkin, Sir, I'll need to tak some blude frae you. Just bide a wee till I get my lance," continued the Doctor, coolly turning up his sleeves, "I'll no be a

crack."

"You and your lance be hanged!" roared the old gentleman, trying to look fierce, but quite unable to suppress a laugh. "Sit down, you vampire, and say your say without farther circumlocution."

"Weel, then, Sir," replied the Doctor, eyeing a savoury morsel which he had just empaled on his fork. "Weel, then, I'll just tell you, in

three words, that it was your ain fault, and ne fault o' mine, that se mony o' the deer jinkit past me this same day."

"My fault, Sir! how the devil do you make out that it was my fault ?"

"'Deed, then, Mr. Lorimer, it was just your faut, and nebody else's. Ye will persist in garrin me aye shoot wi' a single bullet, and ane o' thae bits o' rifles, that lets ne mare crack than a pen-gun; although I've threippet on you till I'm weariet, that I hae no skill o' sic like newfangled weapons, and am no fit to hit a peat-stack wi' ane o' them. But just gie me a gude honest fusee, wi' plenty o' pouther, to gar it tell against a body's cheek, and a nievefu' o' grit shot on the top o' that, and I'll cation mysell to ding as mony staigs as ony o' you,—no exceptin yoursell, Sir; or that cheil Mansfield, wha maks sic a phraze aboot his rifle gun, and his lang ranges. As to the lang ranges, I'll maybe no kill a beast on the ither side o' ane o' thae glens, whare ye need the prospec-glass to see whether it's a dun deer or a grey soo that ye'r firin at. But, faith, there's no mony o' them 'ill gi' me the jink if ance they come within a christianlike distance."

What answer old Lorimer would have given to the Doctor's heretical plan of employing " plenty o' pouther, and a nievefu' o' grit shot," is unknown, although, I suspect, he was just on the point of consigning the Doctor and his fusee to the bottomless pit. But, luckily for them, Ishmail at this moment stepped forward, with his usual profound salaam, to report that the stray hounds had been collected.

The fragments of the luncheon were quickly disposed of, the cigars lighted, and the whole party moved off in the wake of Ishmail and his hounds, to beat that famous glen, below the Todah-Mund, which every Neilgherry sportsman must recollect, as being the favourite resort both of bears and tigers.

It is rather a ravine than a glen. A deep rent in the side of the mountain, so narrow that the light of day can hardly penetrate. The rocky sides rise abruptly to the height of 500 feet, rugged and splintered, as if torn asunder-and no doubt they have been-by some grand convulsion of nature.

The bottom is clothed with an almost impenetrable underwood of tangled bamboo; whilst along the sides a few gnarled, misshapen trees, chiefly rhododendrons, shoot out from amongst the crevices of the rocks, stretching their fantastic branches, all glowing with scarlet flowers, across the ravine, and weaving their snake-like roots into every fissure which affords the slightest prospect of moisture; their moss-grown bark and distorted limbs proving how hard a struggle they must have to extract sufficient nourishment from the niggardly soil.

The information which old Lorimer had received of his friend the bear's man-eating propensities, made him more than ever anxious to ensure his destruction.

All the known outlets were strongly guarded, and on every high peak of rock which commanded a good view might be seen the motionless figure of a native, perched like some huge bird of prey, and watching with eagle glance to prevent the possibility of any animal stealing away unobserved.

All being stationed at their respective posts, the gallant Ishmail contemplated the distribution of the forces with a grim smile of satisfaction,