As we manoeuvred through the forest every day I was astonished to still find traces of animal life in it. The destruction of the undergrowth and creepers having left the jungle more open, I determined to try a beat through it. On our last afternoon I sent all the men of the detachment a mile away across a broad river-bed with orders to drive towards it in a long line through the trees. On the near bank, which rose sheer to a height of thirty-three feet above the sand, the British and native officers, armed with rifles, took up their position. Lying flat on the ground at the edge of the bank, we listened to the shouts of the men coming nearer and nearer. The branches of the trees across the _nullah_ became violently agitated; and a large troop of monkeys swung through them, leaped to the ground, and rushed over the sand on all fours. Then a barking deer broke out about a hundred and fifty yards away, and I fired at it. I was using a 470 cordite rifle; yet, struck just behind the shoulder by a soft-nosed bullet, the little animal ran a furlong before dropping dead. Nothing else followed it. Soon the men came into view between the trees and halted below us. Draj Khan, who was managing the line of beaters, was berating his comrades vehemently. He told me that they had come across a large tusker elephant; and instead of shepherding it gently towards the guns, a number of foolish young sepoys, armed only with sticks, had rushed boldly at it with wild yells. Luckily it did not attack them, but escaped out to one side of the beat. At the other end of the line the men had come on a small herd of _sambhur_, including two stags, and in their excitement had valiantly charged them in the absurd hope of taking them alive. A _sambhur_ stag with his sharp horns and the driving-power of his great weight behind them is no mean foe; and it was just as well that the deer had fled from the men and broke out through a gap in the line. We tried a beat lower down the river, which resulted in the men putting up a panther. But again some foolishly daring spirits rushed at it to attack it with their sticks; and the animal got away at one end of the beat. Draj Khan caught a young _sambhur_ fawn, a week old, and brought it to me in his arms. This and the _khakur_ were our whole bag. I was surprised to find that the burnt forest still sheltered so much life. As the fires do not advance very rapidly the wild beasts can generally keep ahead of them and escape. But I cannot understand how the harmless animals support existence when all their fodder is destroyed.