ot, and that, too, on ground which, as we have seen,
sloped but very slightly.

I cannot conclude this chapter without urging sportsmen to use every means
in their power which can aid in the preservation of these harmless and
interesting animals; and I trust that every effort may be made not only to
obtain a Game Preservation Act for India, but to have a special clause
inserted in it with reference to cow bisons, and the imposition of a heavy
line for killing one of them. Is not the intelligent preservation of game
one of the most prominent signs of advancing civilization?

FOOTNOTES:

[24] In Jerdon's "Mammals of India," Roorkee, 1867, p. 304, however, I
find that it is stated that the bison do ravage the fields of the ryots,
but Mr. Sanderson has no mention of their doing so, and he had the best
opportunities for observation.

CHAPTER VII.

GOLD.

Gold mines are as uncertain as women, and yet from either it seems
impossible to keep away. Perhaps it is this very uncertainty which
constitutes the chief charm of both. But, however that may be, it is
certain that about gold in general, whether visible or prospective, there
is such a degree of attractiveness that, as the Kanarese proverb puts it,
if gold is to be seen even a corpse will open its mouth; and I feel sure
as I write, that in this chapter at least I can count not only on
attention, but on a general attitude of expectancy in the mind of the
reader. And from one point of view he will be fairly satisfied, for the
history of gold mining in Mysore has quite a romantic cast, and in the
hands of a skilful novelist, there might be extracted from it much
literary capital. The foremost fact indeed which I have to give has almost
a sensational flavour, and at first sight seems a mere dream. We often
read of fields of golden grain, but that corn should ever, by any process
of nature, have on its ears grains of gold, seems beyond belief. And yet
the fact of grains of gold being found on the ears of the rice plants is
probably the very earliest tradition connected with gold, and it is not
improbable that the circumstance may have been one of the means of calling
attention to the existence of gold in Mysore. An account of this tradition
is to be found in the "Selections from the Records of the Mysore
Government,"[25] and from them it appears that Lieutenant John Warren,
when he was employed in surveying the eastern boundary of Mysore in 1800,
was told by a Brah