out of her gums; she measured
thirty-nine-and-a-half inches, and fought like a demon. I have shot
pig--in heavy jungle where spearing was impracticable--over thirty-six
inches high, but the biggest pig I ever stuck to my own spear was only
twenty-eight inches, and I do not think any pig has been killed in
Chumparun, within the last ten or a dozen years at any rate, over
thirty-eight inches.

In some parts of India, where pigs are numerous and the jungle dense,
the natives adopt a very ingenious mode of hunting. I have frequently
seen it practised by the cowherds on the Koosee _derahs_, i.e. the flat
swampy jungles on the banks of the Koosee. When the annual floods have
subsided, leaving behind a thick deposit of mud, wrack, and brushwood,
the long thick grass soon shoots up to an amazing height, and vast
herds of cattle and tame buffaloes come down to the jungles from the
interior of the country, where natural pasture is scarce. They are
attended by the owner and his assistants, all generally belonging to
the _gualla_, or cowherd caste, although, of course, there are other
castes employed. The owner of the herd gets leave to graze his cattle
in the jungle, by paying a certain fixed sum per head. He fixes on a
high dry ridge of land, where he runs up a few grass huts for himself
and men, and there he erects lines of grass and bamboo screens, behind
which his cattle take shelter at night from the cold south-east wind.
There are also a few huts of exceedingly frail construction for himself
and his people. This small colony, in the midst of the universal jungle
covering the country for miles round, is called a _batan_.

At earliest dawn the buffaloes are milked, and then with their
attendant herdsmen they wend their way to the jungle, where they spend
the day, and return again to the batan at night, when they are again
milked. The milk is made into _ghee_, or clarified butter, and large
quantities are sent down to the towns by country boats. When we want to
get up a hunt, we generally send to the nearest _batan_ for _khubber_,
i.e. news, information. The _Batanea_, or proprietor of the
establishment, is well posted up. Every herdsman as he comes in at
night tells what animals he has seen through the day, and thus at the
_batan_ you hear where tiger, and pig, and deer are to be met with;
where an unlucky cow has been killed; in what ravine is the thickest
jungle; where the path is free from clay, or quicksand; what fords ar