The cow, tired with struggling and plunging, appears to have become tolerably resigned to her situation, and has lain down, her ears, however, in continual motion, and the jaw sometimes suddenly arrested, while in the act of chewing the cud, to listen, as some slight noise in the thicket attracts her attention. Gracious! what is that down the nullah to the left? A peacock only. How my heart beat at first! what a splendid train the fellow has. Here he comes, evidently for the water; and now his seraglio,--one, two, four, five, buff-breasted, modest-looking little quakeresses. What a contrast to his splendid blue and gold! All to the water--dive in your bills and toss back your heads with blinking eyes, as you quaff the delicious fluid; little do you dream that there is a gun within five paces, although you are quite safe. But stop! here are antics. The old boy is happy, and up goes his tail, to the admiration of his hens, and the extreme wonderment of the cow, who with open eyes is staring with all her might at the glories of the expanded fan; and now slowly goes he round and round, like a solemn Jack o' the Green, his spindle shanks looking disreputably thin in the waning light. They quit the water-side, and disappear; and I can hear their heavy wings as they one after another mount a tall tree for the night. The moon is up--all nature still; the cow, again on her legs, is restless, and evidently frightened. Oh! reader, even if you have the soul of a Shikaree, I despair of being able to convey in words a tithe of the sensations of that solitary vigil: a night like that is to be enjoyed but seldom--a red-letter day in one's existence. Where is the man who has never experienced the poetic influence of a moonlit scene! Fancy, then, such a one as here described; a crescent of low hills--craggy, steep, and thickly wooded--around you on three sides, and above them, again, at twenty miles' distance, the clear blue outline of the Neilgherry Hills; in your front the silver-sand bed of the dry watercourse divides the thick and sombre jungle with a stream of light, till you lose it in the deep shadows at the foot of the hills,--all quiet, all still, all bathed in the light of the moon, yourself the only man for miles to come; a solitary watcher, your only companion the poor cow, who, full of fears and suspicions at every leaf-fall, reminds you that a terrible struggle is about to take place within a few feet of your bed, and that there will be noise and confusion, when you must be cool and collected. Your little kennel would not be strong enough to resist a determined charge, and you are alone, if three good guns are not true friends.