The dense thick bush and tall reeds and grass which surround the _jheels_ or solitary jungle lakes, are a favourite resort of buffalo. There they feed on the rich herbage, and approach the water by long tunnels in the grass and reeds. The extreme danger of encountering these creatures is graphically described by Captain Baldwin, who one evening, accompanied by a native, went down to one of these jungle lakes, and hearing something move in the long grass, had the temerity to enter a tunnel. Up to his ankles in mud, and with scarcely room to move or turn, he was straining his eyes to discover the game, when there was a sudden crash through the brushwood, and before he could bring his rifle into position, 'I was hurled,' he says, 'to the ground with astonishing quickness by a tremendous butt on the right shoulder, followed by a pair of huge knees on my chest, crushing me down. The buffalo then commenced butting me with his huge head. I was covered with foam from his vile mouth: most luckily the ground was very soft, or I must have been killed. I had fallen on my back, but managed, by clutching the root of a small tree, to draw myself from under him; but as I did so and turned over, he struck me a terrible blow on the back with his foot, breaking two ribs; and then I was powerless, and imagined all hope of escape to be over. He gave me a bad wound on the left arm, another dangerous one under the arm-pit, a third on the hip--all with his horns; and then I found myself lifted off the ground and thrown a tremendous somersault in the air.'