...
Our tents are played upon by the flickering shadows of the vast
pipal-tree that rises in a laocooen tortuosity of roots out of an old
well. The spot is cool and pleasant. Round us are picketed elephants,
camels, bullocks, and horses, all enjoying the shade. Our servants are
cooking their food on the precincts; each is busy in front of his own
little mud fireplace. On a larger altar greater sacrifices are being
offered up for our breakfast. A crowd of nearly naked Bheels watch the
rites and snuff the fragrant incense of venison from a respectable
distance. Their leader, a broken-looking old man, with hardly a rag
on, stands apart exchanging deep confidences with my friend the
Shikarry. This old Bheel is girt about the loins with knives, pouches,
powder-horns, and ramrods; and he carries on his shoulder an aged
flintlock. He looks old enough to be an English General Officer or a
Cabinet Minister; and you might assume that he was in the last stage
of physical and mental decay. But you would be quite wrong. This old
Bheel will sit up all night on the branch of a tree among the horned
owls; he will see the tiger kill the young buffalo tied up as a bait
beneath; he will see it drink the life-blood and tear the haunch; he
will watch it steal away and hide under the _karaunda_ bush; he will
sit there till day breaks, when he will creep under the thorn jungle,
across the stream, up the scarp of the ravine, through the long grass
to the sahib's camp, and give the word that makes the hunter's heart
dance.
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