One night when Creagh and I were sitting in the bivouac after dinner in the dim light of a half moon, the idea occurred to me to take one of our elephants and wander along the bed of a river a few hundred yards away, in which, as there was still some water left, we might come upon wild animals drinking. So we got our rifles, and a pad was strapped on Khartoum's back. On her we passed out of the zareba surrounding the camp, in which most of the men lay asleep on their _dhurries_ stretched on the ground; for the native requires no softer bed and can repose contentedly on paving stones. A couple of the Indian officers still sat talking by a fire near the shelter of boughs erected for them by their men. We answered the sentry's challenge and turned Khartoum down a path from the bivouac to the water. It lay faintly white in the misty moonlight which barely lit up the ground under the leafless trees. Not a hundred yards from the camp the _mahout_ stopped Khartoum suddenly and pointed to a black object which indistinctly blurred the path. "A bear, Sahib," he whispered. It was too dark to see my rifle-sights; but I rapidly tied my handkerchief round the barrel and tried to aim at the shadowy outline of the animal. Unluckily at that moment it moved off the path and entered a patch of shadow under a tree which still kept its leaves. I fired both barrels in quick succession without result and the bear scuttled away among the trees. We tried to follow it but could not find it again. When we reached the river-bed, down the middle of which a narrow stream still ran, we wandered up it for a couple of miles in the misty light. It was a curious sensation to be roaming noiselessly--for Khartoum's feet made no sound on the soft sand--in the dead of night through the silent jungle. Far away a _khakur's_ harsh bark rang out suddenly once or twice, giving warning of the presence of some beast of prey; but otherwise all was still. We disturbed a few deer drinking; and they dashed away up the _nullah_ in alarm. But we saw no wild elephant or tiger, such as I had hoped to come upon; and so we turned and made for camp again. On our return to Buxa the hills near us were bare and blackened; but farther away the fires still blazed. The heat and the oppression of the smoky atmosphere were still almost unendurable. But one night in the first week of April I was awakened by a terrific peal of thunder right overhead, which shook my bungalow and echoed and re-echoed among the hills. Another followed, as the intense darkness was lit up by a blinding lightning flash. And a dull moaning sound advancing from the plains below and steadily increasing to a roar made me sit up in bed and wonder what was about to happen. It drew near; and then a torrential downpour of tropical rain beat down on the Station. My iron roof rattled as if millions of pebbles were being flung on it. The noise was so great that I lay awake for hours.