After the first day’s march, game literally swarmed. Of a morning, the clear, shrill note of that handsome and delicate bird, the jungle-fowl, resounded on every side, and when able to use the elephants, we shot large numbers of them with a fair sprinkling of partridges. Deer were plentiful, as also tigers and bears.
During a halt, one of the Europeans engaged in pitching the tents happened to see a pair of eyes peeping from a thicket close at hand, and, aiming a blow with a mallet, he succeeded in felling a small deer, which had evidently been too paralyzed to effect its escape. As an addition to our table, venison was not to be despised; at the same time the Eastern produce is very inferior to our own, which may be said of the game generally, with the exception of the jungle-fowl. This bird combines elegant plumage with a piquant flavour rarely met with in Asiatic birds, yet only when hung the proper time. It is a very shy bird, frequenting those spots where the undergrowth is thickest, and running for some distance when alarmed, eventually rising a short way from the ground, and flying along with cries of alarm.
Situated as we now were, the chance of a shot rarely occurred, though later on we made amends. Neither, as subsequent events clearly proved, was it wise to enter those thickly wooded parts _on foot_ in search of game. I was taught a lesson which eventually cured me, but will reserve an account of it for the proper place.
Instead of marching direct on our quarry, whatever that might be, it soon became evident that we were describing a circuitous route, not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also to avoid a deep and rapid river, which would have brought us to a standstill. On we plodded, therefore, through wilder country, coming one day upon a few houses strongly pallisaded, but to all appearances long since deserted. It was indeed difficult to conceive what could have induced a few families to migrate to such a place in the heart of a jungle swarming with wild beasts, which must have carried off their children and cattle even during the day.
This may have led to their departure; if chosen for retirement from oppression, or for the purpose of contemplating amid nature in her primæval condition, the selection showed admirable judgment. The residential portion of these dwellings must have been twenty feet or more from the ground and the pallisade, which included a circle twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, and contained only one door.