Deer shooting is a fine, healthy, exhilarating exercise for those who are not partial to the dangerous and exciting scenes common to tiger, rhinosceros, and buffalo shooting. It is a mistake, however, to suppose it tame, easy sport. Deer shooting requires much practice: a steady foot and arm in a howdah, and a quick sight are indispensable, if you would shoot either pigs or deer while bounding rapidly over the plain. A most deadly poison is extracted from a kind of root denominated Mishmee Bih (or poison) brought from the Mishmee country, on the north-east quarter of Assam. With this the natives in Upper Assam generally cover the tips of their arrows, and destroy elephants for the sake of the ivory tusks. So powerful, so deadly is the effect of the poison, that the slightest scratch or puncture of an arrow smeared with it proves fatal: if not instantaneously, at all events in a few hours after an elephant has been stricken. Deer and buffaloes are also killed in the same manner. Immediately the animal falls, the wounded part is cut out, and the flesh is then eaten by the natives, without apprehension of any ill effects arising from the inoculation of the body by the poison: at least I have never heard of a single instance of a person losing his life from having eaten of the flesh of animals killed by poisoned arrows, common as is the practice of partaking of such food. Safety appears to be secured by excising the wounded part. Of all field sports in Assam, that of catching wild elephants with the noose is the most exciting and dangerous. On a herd of wild elephants being discovered, four tame elephants, called Koonkies, with two men on each elephant--one sitting on the neck, and called a Phundaet, from having to throw the noose, and the other seated on the back, with a club, to urge the elephant into full speed--proceed to join the herd; which generally at first sight of the tame elephants, takes to immediate flight. A good sized wild elephant, however, being quickly selected from the herd by the riders, by common consent, is pursued till fairly run down, when the Phundaet throws over the wild elephant's head a large rope noose, one end of which is attached to the body of the tame elephant on which he is mounted, and the wild animal is instantly pulled up and rendered helpless. The other three tame elephants now joining, another noose is thrown over the wild elephant's head on the other side; the ropes on both sides being extended to a distance of ten paces. The entangled brute is then triumphantly led off between the two tame elephants to a place of security, where, his legs being bound with ropes to a large post in front and rear, he is kept on low diet until he becomes tractable,--a state to which he submits himself in an incredibly short space of time. The female elephants may, in two months, be driven alone anywhere; but the male elephants take four, six, and sometimes twelve months before they can