the tree, ready to face each fresh assailant, full of fight, and determined to die but not to yield an inch. Time after time we rode at the dauntless cripple. Each time he charged right down, and our spears made little mark upon his toughened hide. Our horses too were getting tired of such a customer, and little inclined to face his charge. At length 'Jamie' delivered a lucky spear and the grey old warrior fell. It had kept us at bay for fully an hour and a half, and among our number we reckoned some of the best riders and boldest pig-stickers in the district. Such was our sport in those good old days. Our meets came but seldom, so that sport never interfered with the interests of honest hard work; but meeting each other as we did, and engaging in exciting sport like pig-sticking, cemented our friendship, kept us in health, and encouraged all the hardy tendencies of our nature. It whetted our appetites, it roused all those robust virtues that have made Englishmen the men they are, it sent us back to work with lighter hearts and renewed energy. It built up many happy, cherished memories of kindly words and looks and deeds, that will only fade when we in turn have to bow before the hunter, and render up our spirits to God who gave them. Long live honest, hearty, true sportsmen, such as were the friends of those happy days. Long may Indian sportsmen find plenty of 'foemen worthy of their steel' in the old grey boar, the fighting tusker of Bengal. [Illustration: PIG-STICKERS.] CHAPTER XI. The sal forests.--The jungle goddess.--The trees in the jungle. --Appearance of the forests.--Birds.--Varieties of parrots.--A 'beat' in the forest.--The 'shekarry.'--Mehrman Singh and his gun.--The Banturs, a jungle tribe of wood-cutters.--Their habits.--A village feast.--We beat for deer.--Habits of the spotted deer.--Waiting for the game.--Mehrman Singh gets drunk.--Our bag.--Pea-fowl and their habits.--How to shoot them.--Curious custom of the Nepaulese.--How Juggroo was tricked, and his revenge. Tirhoot is too generally under cultivation and too thickly inhabited for much land to remain under jungle, and except the wild pig of which I have spoken, and many varieties of wild fowl, there is little game to be met with. It is, however, different in North Bhaugulpore, where there are still vast tracts of forest jungle, the haunt of the spotted deer, nilghau, leopard, wolf, and other wild animals. Along the banks of the Koosee, a rapid mountain river that rolls its flood through numerous channels to join the Ganges, there are immense tracts of uncultivated land covered with tall elephant grass, and giving cover to tigers, hog deer, pig, wild buffalo, and even an occasional rhinoceros, to say nothing of smaller game and wildfowl, which are very plentiful.