over the crest of the hill.  The ground I was standing on sloped only slightly upward towards the point at which the bison emerged, there being at the spot a length of about eighty yards of comparatively flat land, which, of course, accounted for the swampy ground, which, by the way, had been partly created by the natives having at some remote time formed a small tank there.  Well, the following morning I went to the spot with an English sporting companion, and said, “This is the place where I was charged.”  “But,” he said, and so said the natives with him, “there has never been a bison here at all,” and as there had been some rain the day before, the tracks would, of course, have been plainly visible.  As it turned out, we happened to be standing between the tracks, and on measuring the distance between them, we found that the bull had covered twenty-one feet from hind-foot to hind-foot, 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