The brutes keep pretty constant to the same quarters, when the fish are plentiful; and we soon ascertained that poor Sidhoo's murderer was well known in the neighborhood of the nulla. He had on several occasions carried off goats, sheep, pigs, and children; and had once attempted to drag a buffalo, whom he had caught drinking, into the water; but, from all accounts, came off second best in this rencontre. There not being enough of water in the nulla to drown the buffalo, the Mugger soon found he had caught a Tartar; and after being well mauled by the buffalo's horns, he was fain to scuttle off and hide himself among the mud. I had observed, when blasting the snags, that the concussion produced by the discharge had the effect of killing all the fish within a range of some twenty or thirty yards. After every explosion, they were found in great numbers, floating on the surface of the water with their bellies uppermost. It now occurred to me, that if we could only get within a moderate distance of the Mugger, if we did not blow him to pieces, we would at all events give him a shock that would rather astonish him. An explosion of gunpowder under water communicates a much severer shock to the objects in its immediate vicinity, than the same quantity of powder exploded in the air; the greater density of the water enabling it, as it were, to give a harder blow. Having made our arrangements, Mr. Hall, my brother, and myself, got into a small canoe, with the blasting apparatus on board, and dropt down the stream to where the nulla discharged its waters into the Rohan. He then got out and proceeded to a village close by, where we obtained for a few annas, the carcass of a young kid. A flask with about six pounds of gunpowder, and having the conducting wires attached, was then sewn into the kid's belly. Two Strong ropes were also tied to this bait; and, to one of these, the conducting wire was firmly bound with small cord. The ropes were about thirty yards long, and had each attached to its extremities one of the inflated goat-skins used by water-carriers. Hall, with his goat-skin under his arm, and a coil of loose rope in his hand, took one side of the nulla, while my brother, similarly provided took the other. My brother's rope contained the wire; so I walked beside him, while two coolies, with the battery ready charged, and slung to a pole which rested on their shoulders, accompanied me. A small float was also attached by a string to the kid, so as to indicate its position.